Alma Feldhandler

Alma Feldhandler’s (*1996, based in Paris) paintings are filled with wounded creatures, tattered existences and anxious forms that seem to be waiting in the corridors of time. Her compositions are fed by century-old photographs ranging from archives of the Jewish diaspora to Victorian London and fashion history. At first glance, Feldhandler’s very small to large-format paintings appear almost neo-expressionist. The painter uses bright colours, applying them to the canvas in very thin layers, so …

At first glance, Feldhandler’s very small to large-format paintings appear almost neo-expressionist. The painter uses bright colours, applying them to the canvas in very thin layers, so that her figures always seem to be just materialising out of a distinct mist of colour. As if you were dreaming or remembering – fragile states in limbo that can quickly evaporate again.

Although the people in her pictures seem to come from a different time, they appear approachable, familiar, as if you had just met them on the street and spoken to them. Feldhandler’s pictures are like traces of shared experiences, close and yet distant. Just as the canvas absorbs the colour, her pictures exert a suction effect on the viewer.

The figures in Feldhandler’s paintings often wear neat clothes that look as if they have been carefully treated and maybe passed on for generations. In the paintings she created for the exhibition Who’s the Captain of All These Boys of Death?, which was on view at Meyer Riegger, Berlin in spring 2024, Feldhandler was not only inspired by the paintings and drawings of the Jewish Museum’s collection, but also by photographs from the archive that were taken in Berlin’s fashion houses during the Weimar Republic. The clothes someone wears mould the body, and vice versa, the body moulds the clothes. As a kind of protective armour and always conditioned by social conventions and circumstances, clothing bears witness to a time in a person’s life and expresses a particular, unmistakable way of being. Memories of generations are stored in the material of these coats, shoes and trousers – just like in Feldhandler’s canvases.

Romain Noël, Who’s the Captain of All These Boys of Death?

Here you can read the press release of the exhibition Who’s the Captain of All These Boys of Death?

Artforum: Critic’s Pick

You can find the review of Alma Feldhandler’s solo exhibition at Galerie Derouillon here.

Das Archiv als Fiebertraum

Review (in German) by Jonathan Guggenberger about Alma Feldhandler’s solo exhibition Who’s The Captain of All These Boys of Death? at Meyer Riegger, Berlin.

Somerset House by Gabriel Gauthier

Accompanied Alma Feldhandler’s exhibition Mantel Mann at Galerie Derouillon, Paris, 2023. In London, when Winter settles in, You can ice-skate In the courtyard of the Somerset House. I wonder if the water they freeze Is the Thames’. Canaletto Painted it a lot. I believe he Mistakes it for the Grand Canal In Venice, where he lived. It’s always like this, Places recall others, You’d swear they share the same lining, It’s the same stitch. Just like A coat sounds like a boat and Maybe there’s a …

Accompanied Alma Feldhandler’s exhibition Mantel Mann at Galerie Derouillon, Paris, 2023.

In London, when Winter settles in,
You can ice-skate
In the courtyard of the Somerset House.
I wonder if the water they freeze
Is the Thames’. Canaletto
Painted it a lot. I believe he
Mistakes it for the Grand Canal
In Venice, where he lived. It’s always like this,
Places recall others,
You’d swear they share the same lining,
It’s the same stitch. Just like
A coat sounds like a boat and
Maybe there’s a tailor named Altman
Or Horovitz in the stellar backroom of a shop
Who unconsciously cut everything up — names,
Clothes and the sense of History —
One heavy fabric-roll. There, the universe is
Tailor-made, the world is split into trousers,
Jackets with slits for buttons
On collars with notched lapels but
The mind sails on the surface
Like a big cloak of light
Golden or light blue or dark, it depends. The twist :
Figuring out what is yours.
That’s how
The prince and the doges get screwed.
They think they own what they pay for,
The palace and the print of the palace,
But in fact, they only pay to think
It belongs to them. Meanwhile,
Our clothes stay and wait for their men —
They’re not their men — in the cloakroom
Where everything was checked in
Momentarily. But here I am chatting away
And the background is fading, isn’t it?
Or the day has just
Fallen on us. Even I
Don’t know how long
I’m going to stay
Up. The state of vigil mixed with fatigue
Shakes
The ground.
The ground
Is strange
To me. There’s only what I wear
On me that is sharp.
How cold do you think it is
Outside ? How much is it
Like inside ? Are you doubtful
For what’s to come ? I’m not worried
As long as my clothes lift me up
In the air. Because the air is
In the coat. Right ? In den Mantel —
Was steht in den Mantel ? Die Luft.
Es steht die Luft in den Mantel and its tones
Change with the weather.
Now, the night is here —
No stars, no names —
And it suits us, I’m ok with it.
The forest line behind
Us is enough. We don’t
Need the circumstances anymore.
The night is green, it’s fashioned,
A tight knit of branches, patterns
Impossible to reproduce,
Behind the reddened alders
I always fail to count.
I suck the air
And when I’m out of breath from the walk
Of time, I lay down and sink into
The ground.
Sometimes my mental faculties collapse
And I cry because I’m sure of nothing, but I heal
And I have all the necessary strength
For another couple of hours.
But here we are in Santa Lucia
And we’re passing through the ghetto without
Knowing it, then on the bridge of the Barefoot.
Canaletto often painted it.
We’re producing heat under the clouds
Of midges at dusk,
We’re in luck,
What is no longer there is again very close to
Disappearing.

Podcast: Listening to Art

In Episode 3 of our podcast Listening to Art, Alma Feldhandler talks to Julia Friedrich, Collection and Exhibition Director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin.