Goldstein in Gaza, 1999
elected figures ( The 10 Commandments , 2019). Like many artists, the pandemic lockdown gave Goldstein a win- dow to focus on archiving her past work, and the resulting publica- tion of the pieces she cherishes most will be titled XXX . Now, she’s working on Mistresspieces , that will shed a different
To assess the tensions properly, she believes one needs critical thinking abilities and a knowledge of history: “You have to come to it with an understanding and an openness to understand what is really happening.” Back in Vancouver in the early 2000s, with her mother diagnosed
light on how women were portrayed in some of the most famous paintings ever, such as The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, Girl With a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer, and the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Her aim is to shift the spotlight to recognize the subjects more than the artists. And that’s also how Goldstein has increasingly come to see herself after the Toy Story incident, as a “hybrid” who feels too Israeli for Canada, yet also too Canadian for Israel. Playing with percep- tions was already a central theme in her work. Now her own legacy includes the experience of being sidelined for what she considered antisemitism, even if the CICA gallery told her some contradictory
with cancer and a young daughter enamoured with fairy-tale heroines, Goldstein began work on Fallen Princesses. The 10-piece series, created from 2007 to 2009, features humanized ver- sions of characters like Snow White, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood confronting scourges like cancer, addiction, obesity, war and environ- mental degradation. It also gave her a taste of viral internet attention. “It was recognized for many reasons, not only the artwork. It was a time when a lot of parents were asking questions of Disney. For example, why are their female characters always victims? This is not the world our girls are being born into, and it was just really outdated.” ( Grimm Lane is the title of a video adaptation that Goldstein hopes can be sold to a major streaming platform.)
Goldstein would have been the only woman artist in the show, as well as the only to have ever visited Gaza.
technical and artistic reasons were behind its decision. “We see these characters in storytelling, and how storytelling is important yet deceiving,” says Goldstein. “I try to say that with my alternate realities.” Sam Margolis is a Victoria-based contributor to The CJN who has written for The Globe and Mail , National Post , United Press International, MSNBC, and the Jewish Independent .
In the Dollhouse followed three years later, and then her 20 years of professional work were marked in her own studio with a retrospective of 20 pieces. The past decade found Goldstein cre- ating series exploring both mainstream and fringe religions ( Gods of Suburbia , 2014), a reconceptualization of 1930s illustrated advertising posters ( Modern Girl , 2016), a series drawing from Jewish folklore ( Snapshots from the Garden of Eden, 2017) and an examination of the socio-political fabric of the U.S. through its
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