Sculpted palm trees, diving dolphins, beach-bum figures, and paintings of iconic buildings, some still standing, others demolished, all blend in Rachel Feinstein’s new solo show, The Miami Years, at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami. The show is a retrospective of the sculptor’s work from the 90s until today, an ode to the city she grew up in and continues to visit regularly: Miami. The artist is inextricably connected to the city’s wilderness, be it its animal and plant life or the cultural and party scenes that have animated the unequivocal spot since Feinstein moved there as a child in the 1970s. 

Our conversation starts quickly—Feinstein is abuzz, casual, but energetic and forthcoming, sitting in a bright library. “I am at John’s studio in Gramercy—” (She is referring to her husband, John Currin. They’re both artists, both represented by Gagosian, and both could be said to borrow from art historical precedents in unprecedented ways. Taking a closer look at her red hair, piercing eyes, and milky glowing complexion, I really do see her in Currin’s work) “—and in my lap is my cat, and this is my dog,” she says pointing the camera to the floor where I see something furry under a shelf. Normally, she would be in her studio in Chinatown (“darker” she says), but Currin has block printing equipment that she will be experimenting with later. 

Paying attention to the direction of light and perspective, The Miami Years is certainly a trademark of Feinstein’s tendency towards experimentation. Works like “Panorama of Miami” flip and crop images to create a whole: “Like a mood board [used in the] fashion [industry] or a Max Ernst collage.” During the collage process, Feinstein enlisted the help of fellow Gagosian artist Roe Ethridge to travel around Miami and capture snapshots of places close to her heart. 

As we dive into our conversation, pondering Feinstein’s choice to stage an exhibition that delves into the place she holds so dearly, I begin to reshape my initial questions about the technical elements of the work—much of which has been covered extensively. To truly dig deeper into The Miami Years, one must become curious about Feinstein’s life—her Miami, its people, architecture, her key memories—and how they have come to shape her artistry.

In the 1980s, Miami had a large community of retirees and snowbirds, a growing number of tourist traps, a substantial drug trade, and plenty of alligators. Feinstein’s mother was a nurse and a celebrated conservationist who worked with parrots (there’s even a Nat Geo documentary about her!). Human meetings with the natural world come up often in our conversation about this era, and with a disarming nonchalance on the artist’s behalf: “One day a neighbor warned us not to leave the house as his monkey had escaped…alligators could eat us at any time…I lived in a jungle,” Feinstein asserts. Her father was a skin doctor, and Miami’s expanding crime circles permeated even the most mundane interactions within daily life. Sometimes, Feinstein explains, patients brought suitcases filled with cash to pay for their visits to her father.

As of the past year, both of the artist’s parents have passed—instilling within Feinstein a complicated sadness that surrounds the city—yet Feinstein still sees Miami as home. When she smilingly tells me that parrots flew to the garden of her childhood home in Coral Gables for her mother’s funeral, it’s clear that she’s one to seek a silver lining. Like Feinstein herself, Feinstein’s work on Miami embraces oddities and multiplicities, at once marrying the recognizable with the outlandish—in The Miami Years, Miami and Feinstein exist simultaneously, with ease.

At the time of Feinstein’s adolescence (and her burgeoning interest in art), the Miami art scene was not yet what it is today. The artist remembers seeing a hyperrealist Duane Hanson sculpture of a Miami Dolphins player (perhaps it was 1981’s “Football Player”?) at Harn Museum of Art: “That is the type of art I want to create,” she describes herself thinking. The sculpture was of an athlete with a dirty face who had probably just lost—the piece was real and felt familiar to her, unlike the untouchable European impressionist paintings that shaped her understanding of art. This was Americana, and she knew she could make it.

Fashion was Feinstein’s introduction to the constitution of creative professions. After being discovered by Alexis Rodríguez-Duarte, she started modeling at the age of 14. Male models would take her out clubbing, and as long as she kept her grade point average up, her parents were fine with her being out until 2 AM. “I saw a lot of cocaine, but my friends protected me,” she explains. “The Breakers Hotel is in my panorama,” Feinstein elaborates, “[Which] is where Bruce Weber shot the Calvin Klein Obsession ad. You know the one with the naked men [beat]... and some women. I was there [for some of his shoots].” Weber, who is eponymous for bringing the male nude to larger audiences, also photographed Feinstein. She finds the pictures on her phone. “You look stunning!” I say. She replies, wryly: “Well, my father was a dermatologist.”

I am enjoying her candor and the peek into her warm and colorful youth. “It was thanks to not being able to do my bat mitzvah that I was introduced to making art…my mom came into the Temple and told them that I was baptized,” Feinstein says. No harm no foul, she figured. Instead of Torah studies, she took art classes—she credits the event to her majoring in religion and philosophy at Columbia University. 

After moving to New York, Feinstein was prohibited from majoring in fine art by her parents, though took some art classes and secured a large studio space at Columbia. She studied with Judy Pfaff and Ursula von Rydingsvärd, enjoyed a summer at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and was eventually included in Greater New York, the seminal exhibition in 2000 at PS1. The Greater New York benchmark, as the artist humbly frames it, meant she was: “Growing up with other people around me,” or, as many others would talk about the achievement: it meant she was making it as an artist. 

In 2000, post-Greater New York, Feinstein visited Munich for the first time, a visit that sparked her foray into rococo mimicry and fabulation. “The Disney castle with its soft clouds and simplified forms is so different from the complexities of the real thing,” she explains. 

Much of Feinstein’s work engages with the Rococo period and folklore [See: “Rococo Hut” (2014), “The Snow Queen” (2011), retrospective Maiden, Mother, Crone (2020)]. In popular culture, the period is often depicted as a time of exuberance, lavish and ornate interiors, sometimes with queer undertones. Feinstein interprets things differently—she finds herself drawn to the period’s decorative arts and architecture for their sinister and weird forms, as well as the upheavals that marked its social life. “[In France] people’s heads were being chopped off. It must have been terrifying—” she pauses, “but it led to emancipation.”

Though The Miami Years does not investigate centuries-old stories, it’s not a deviation from Feinstein’s exploration of folklore. Instead, The Miami Years turns inward, exploring the capacity of Feinstein’s city—the capacity of Feinstein herself, even—for mythmaking. 

For those visiting The Bass during Art Basel Miami or before August 17th, 2025 when the show closes, a magical, personal, and provocative encounter with Feinstein’s Miami awaits. As our conversation comes to a close, I ask one last question. 

Do you miss the old Miami? “Yes and no,” she concludes, perhaps thinking of her late family members, perhaps thinking of a riotous past. But, Feinstein needn’t reply—the answer can be found in her creations. Sadness is an integral part of nostalgia, but so is joy. Miami will continue to change, as will Feinstein. 

Written by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand