Rachel Zaretsky

“An Index of Americanisms”

Opening Sunday August 11th 4-8pm

By appointment through Sept 9th

Winslow Garage is pleased to host Prospect Art grantee Rachel Zaretsky.

“An Index of Americanisms” is an installation examining the public’s desires concerning monumentality, collective memory, and its commodification. The exhibition includes interactive sculpture, photography, and installation works. Mass shootings are hyper-represented in mass media, where coverage contributes to how grief is framed when local traumas become national sensations. The work approaches these cycles of circulation by presenting an audit of actions or inactions that are subsequently set in motion. This presentation probes the commercialization of memory and grief, focusing on how collective remembrance and forgetting shape public responses to tragedy.

Rachel Zaretsky is an artist and educator based in Los Angeles, CA. She received her MFA in Art from the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design and her BFA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She was the recipient of the Macomber Travel Grant and was awarded a Research Fellowship at the USC Shoah Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at Human Resources, 18th Street Arts Center, and UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles; it has also been screened in New York and Germany.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This exhibition is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support is provided by Yev Kozachuk, CFP® - Financial Advisor at Edward Jones.

WORKS INCLUDED IN “AN INDEX OF AMERICANISMS” :

well wishes, sympathies, utterances (Newtown)

2024, UV print on Dibond. 24“x36”

An Index of Americanisms

2023, 27 feet long paper scroll following the structure of a printed receipt, it is broken down into sections that represent one week of the year. On the receipts are line items of news headlines drawn from national and local publications citing each mass shooting that took place in 2023 in the United States.

A Rose for the next Tragedy

2024, metal sculpture, faux roses, hand printed tags. Visitors are invited to take a rose with them in the event they may (eventually) need one for a future loss.

ABOUT PROSPECT ART:

PROSPECT ART is a forward-thinking, Los Angeles-based artist-run not-for-profit 501c3 organization that fosters artists′ careers by providing exposure through open dialogues, critical writing, project grants, and exhibitions. The organization, conceived during the 2020 pandemic by Los Angeles-based artists Gioj De Marco and Elizabeth Withstandley, is structured as an agile, responsive entity to serve artists and the local Los Angeles community by commissioning and presenting newworks to the public.

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