{{Short description|American Artist}} {{use mdy dates|date=September 2021}} {{Infobox artist | name = Erika Rothenberg | image = | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = New York City, US | death_date = | death_place = | known_for = Installation, public art, painting, drawing, political art, social satire | education = University of Chicago, The High School of Music & Art | alma_mater = | movement = | website = {{url|erikarothenberg.com}} | patrons = }} thumb|right|325px|Erika Rothenberg, ''House of Cards'', installation of 90 satirical greeting cards, 1992, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
'''Erika Rothenberg''' is a Los Angeles–based conceptual artist whose work has included painting, drawing and photography, public art, sculpture and installation.<ref name="Freudenheim05">Freudenheim, Susan. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-25-et-rothenberg25-story.html "Casting a cold eye...,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', March 25, 2005. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Wexelman18">Wexelman, Alex. [https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-erika-rothenberg-ad-exec-turned-talents-subversive-art "Erika Rothenberg, the Ad Exec Who Turned Her Talents Toward Subervisive Art,"] ''Artsy'', September 20, 2018. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> Her art employs strategies and formats from mass media and persuasion, using words and images in familiar ways to present satirical, socially critical content, often with a subversive feminist point of view.<ref name="Ollman16">Ollman, Leah. [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-galleries-erika-rothenberg-20161125-htmlstory.html "What to see in L.A. galleries: Hot-button greeting cards, mesmerizing photograms,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', November 28, 2016. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Knight90">Knight, Christopher. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-09-13-ca-45-story.html "Erika Rothenberg's Delights of Dissent,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', September 13, 1990. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Princenthal92">Princenthal, Nancy. "Erika Rothenberg," ''Art in America'', July 1992.</ref> In 2015, ''Artforum'' writer Michelle Grabner called Rothenberg's ironic use of vernacular signage and marketing strategies "relentless," characterizing her as "a harsh social critic with a facility for image-making, language and design … irony in Rothenberg’s hands is a barbed political weapon, and she wields it to underscore the very real injustices she observes in daily life."<ref name="Grabner15">Grabner, Michelle [https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201506/erika-rothenberg-52387 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''Artforum''. Summer 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref>
Rothenberg has exhibited at venues including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),<ref name="MoMA92">Museum of Modern Art. [https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/373 "Projects 36: Erika Rothenberg,"], Exhibitions. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),<ref name="Barron00">Barron, Stephanie and Sheri Bernstein, Ilene Susan Fort. [https://www.worldcat.org/title/made-in-california-art-image-and-identity-1900-2000/oclc/44454648?tab=details ''Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000''], Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> New Museum,<ref name="Hess89">Hess, Elizabeth. "Protest Art Vandalized at New Museum," ''Village Voice'', December 26, 1989.</ref> Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Hirshhorn Museum,<ref name="Catlin18">Catlin, Roger. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/are-you-buying-what-theyre-selling-180968251/ "Are You Buying What These Artists Are Selling?"] ''Smithsonian Magazine'', February 26, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> and Documenta IX.<ref name="Nachtigäller92">Nachtigäller, Roland and Nicola von Velsen. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/754862481 ''Documenta IX''], Stuttgart, Germany: Edition Cantz; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> Her work belongs to the public collections of MoMA,<ref name="MoMA92"/> Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles,<ref name="MOCA">Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. [https://www.moca.org/artist/erika-rothenberg Erika Rothenberg], Artists. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> LACMA,<ref name="LACMA">Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art [https://collections.lacma.org/node/156641''Untitled (Purple Bottle)'', Erika Rothenberg], Collections. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> MCA Chicago,<ref name="MCAC2">Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. [https://mcachicago.org/collection/items/erika-rothenberg/1584-Americas-Joyous-Future ''America's Joyous Future''], Collection. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent),<ref name="SMAK">Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst. [https://smak.be/en/news/opening-exhibitions-leblon-burga-against-the-wall-and-broodthaerskabinet-friday-9-march-2018 "From the Collection: Against the Wall?,"] Exhibitions, March 2018. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> among others.
==Education and early career== Rothenberg was born in New York City in 1950. She studied art at the University of Chicago until she was thrown out for participating in a student demonstration.<ref name="Freudenheim05"/><ref name="Wexelman18"/> After returning to New York in the early 1970s, she found work at the advertising agency McCann-Erickson; seeking to become an art director, she took a design night course at the School of Visual Arts and soon became the agency's first female in that position.<ref name="Wexelman18"/><ref name="Freudenheim05"/> She worked for eight years at the agency, for clients including Coca-Cola, NBC, Lufthansa and ''The New York Times'', while creating art in her off-time.<ref name="Wexelman18"/><ref name="Freudenheim05"/>
Rothenberg began her art career in the late 1970s. She adapted her work experience to artmaking, melding dark humor and sociopolitical commentary with advertising's wide reach, directness, and blend of language and visuals.<ref name="Wexelman18"/><ref name="LAM">Laguna Art Museum. [https://lagunaartmuseum.org/artist/erika-rothenberg/ Erika Rothenberg], Collection. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Freudenheim05"/> In her first decade, she exhibited in solo shows at P.P.O.W. Gallery (New York),<ref name="Linker87">Linker, Kate. [https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/198709/erika-rothenberg-61793 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''Artforum'', November 1987. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> W.P.A. (Washington)<ref name="Swisher87">Swisher, Kara. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/04/20/feminist-strokes-at-wpa/ebda8fa5-9dbd-4683-a48a-c9d2e719f2cb/ "Feminist Strokes at WPA,"] ''The Washington Post'', April 20, 1987. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> and Rosamund Felsen Gallery (Los Angeles),<ref name="Wilson88">Wilson, William. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-03-25-ca-236-story.html Review], ''Los Angeles Times'', March 25, 1988. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> and group shows at Franklin Furnace, Artists Space, White Columns and The Alternative Museum, among others.<ref name="Brenson84">Brenson, Michael. [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/06/arts/art-35-stone-wonders-of-india-southeast-asia.html?searchResultPosition=19 Review], ''The New York Times'', January 6, 1984. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Brenson85">Brenson, Michael. [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/22/arts/art-a-view-of-news-manipulation.html?searchResultPosition=10 "A View of News Manipulation,"] ''The New York Times'', March 22, 1985. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> New Museum director Marcia Tucker selected Rothenberg's work for "Not Just For Laughs: The Art of Subversion" (1980), the influential and divisive exhibition, "Bad Girls" (1994), and a 1989 solo exhibition.<ref name="NM">New Museum. [https://archive.newmuseum.org/people/2147 Erika Rothenberg], People. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Glueck94">Glueck, Grace. "A Broader View of Feminism," ''The New York Observer'', February 7, 1994.</ref><ref name="Knight94">Knight, Christopher. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-08-ca-20290-story.html "Bad Girls: Feminism on Wry,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', February 8, 1994. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Hess89"/> From the beginning, Rothenberg pursued socially committed art, participating in public projects organized by Group Material, among others.<ref name="MoMA92" /> In a 2003 lawsuit, she inadvertently outed herself as "Kathe Kollwitz", one of the leaders of the Guerrilla Girls, an artists collective that organized anonymously in 1985 (adopting the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms) to publicize and combat sexism, racism and corruption in the art world.<ref name="Tate">[http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/guerrilla-girls-6858 Guerrilla Girls in Tate Modern Collection]</ref><ref name="Ryzik15">Ryzik, Melena. [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/arts/design/the-guerrilla-girls-after-3-decades-still-rattling-art-world-cages.html "The Guerrilla Girls, After 3 Decades, Still Rattling Art World Cages,"] ''New York Times'', August 5, 2015. Retrieved June 26, 2018.</ref><ref name="Toobin05">Toobin, Jeffrey. [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/05/30/girls-behaving-badly "Girls Behaving Badly,"] ''The New Yorker'', May 23, 2005. Retrieved March 11, 2022.</ref><ref name="Wexelman18" />
==Work== Rothenberg's style has been described as "user-friendly,"<ref name="Knight90"/> employing concise, deadpan prose and emblematic, often hand-painted imagery in unconventional contexts—fake ads, billboards, window displays, newspaper inserts—in order to examine American ideology, mass culture, and taboo subjects.<ref name="Princenthal92"/><ref name="Ollman16"/><ref name="Freudenheim05"/><ref name="Myers07">Myers, Holly. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-mar-13-et-multiple13-story.html "Dynamically capturing the feminist spirit,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', March 13, 2007. Retrieved March 11, 2022.</ref> ''Los Angeles Times'' critic Christopher Knight wrote that her work combines accessibility and "a resonant conceptual side" informed by the often-ignored political dimension of Pop art, "engaging a diverse and wide-ranging audience in a consideration of their shared situation as citizens."<ref name="Knight90"/> Leah Ollman placed Rothenberg among a long line of contemporary social satirists—from Barbara Kruger to Stephen Colbert—"spearing the status quo" with work that "induces cringes, queasy laughter and sighs of every stripe—pain, shame, outrage."<ref name="Ollman16"/>
thumb|left|345px|Erika Rothenberg, ''Freedom of Expression National Monument'', wood, sheet metal, bronze plaque, 1984. New York, Creative Time’s "Art on the Beach." In collaboration with Laurie Hawkinson and John Malpede.
=== Early work – 1980s === Rothenberg first gained wide attention for her "Morally Superior Products" series (1980–90)—installations and storyboard paintings that promoted fictional companies and products, and comprised much of her first solo gallery exhibitions at P.P.O.W. in 1986 and 1987.<ref name="Brenson86">Brenson, Michael. [https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/28/arts/art-knowlton-s-works-on-show-at-the-modern.html?searchResultPosition=6 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''The New York Times'', March 28, 1986. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Linker87"/><ref name="Wexelman18"/> Based on advertising strategies, the series employed bright colors, friendly faces and a relentless tone of upbeat cheeriness in order to examine intersections between American exceptionalism and consumerism through the creation of products with a moral conscience.<ref name="Brenson86"/><ref name="Brenson87">Brenson, Michael. [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/02/arts/art-william-tucker-and-his-greek-titans.html?searchResultPosition=7 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''The New York Times'', October 2, 1987. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Linker87"/> Her products included "Sauce Against Racism" and "The Secret Penis"—hosiery that she supplemented with a sewn-in bulge designed to help women "feel equal" in the workplace; its tagline read: "A Woman Needs to Start At the Bottom In Order to Get to the Top!"<ref name="Brenson87"/><ref name="Wexelman18"/> ''Artforum'' critic Kate Linker described the work as "raunchy, rollicking, and deliberately unsubtle" in its political points.<ref name="Linker87"/> ''New York Times'' critic Michael Brenson wrote, "Rothenberg plunges us into the gap between appearance and reality ... there is a bleakness that suggests the view of America in the best works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Joan Didion."<ref name="Brenson86"/>
Rothenberg's 1989 New Museum window display, ''Have You Attacked America Today?'', was described by director Marcia Tucker as "the most notorious exhibition" the museum hosted.<ref name="McGee93">McGee, Cecilia. [https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/17/archives/artsartifacts-high-priestess-of-trendiness.html?searchResultPosition=24 "High Priestess of Trendiness,"] ''The New York Times'', January 17, 1993. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Hess89"/><ref name="Saltz16">Saltz, Jerry and Rachel Corbett. [https://www.vulture.com/2016/04/identity-politics-that-forever-changed-art.html "How Identity Politics Conquered the Art World. An oral history,"] ''Vulture'', April 2016. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> The drugstore-like display offered tongue-in-cheek "Freedom of Expression Drugs" designed to facilitate citizen dissent (an anti-apathy ointment, "Offend" mouthwash, "Pro-Test" pills), a rewritten "Star-Spangled Banner," and flag-burning kits depicting fresh-faced, smiling adolescents subtly igniting American flags.<ref name="Hess89"/><ref name="Knight90"/><ref name="Orr18">Orr, Rachel. [https://www.thelily.com/10-women-artists-from-the-80s-who-helped-define-contemporary-art/ "10 women artists from the ’80s who helped define contemporary art,"] ''The Lily'' (''Washington Post'', June 1, 2018. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> Both popular and controversial, it was vandalized twice by visitors who broke the window and looted most of the goods, which Rothenberg replaced.<ref name="Hess89"/><ref name="Orr18"/> The display was shown in Los Angeles in 1990 (along with a billboard work),<ref name="Knight90"/> and the products included in the Hirshhorn Museum show, "Brand New" (2018).<ref name="Orr18"/><ref name="Catlin18"/>
During this period, Rothenberg also created her first major public art work, ''Freedom of Expression National Monument'' (1984), in collaboration with architect Laurie Hawkinson and performance artist John Malpede for the Creative Time-commissioned exhibition "Art on the Beach."<ref name="Glueck84">Glueck, Grace. [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/13/arts/art-sculpture-on-the-sands-of-battery-park-city.html?searchResultPosition=20 "Sculpture on the Sands of Battery Park City,"] ''The New York Times'', July 13, 1984. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="CT">Creative Time. [https://creativetime.org/programs/archive/1984/Art_Beach6/Art_Beach6.htm "Art on the Beach 6,"] Programs. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Melvin86">Melvin, Tessa. [https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/07/nyregion/arts-group-to-fight-rejection-of-sculpture.html?searchResultPosition=16 "Arts Group to Fight Rejection of Sculpture,"] ''The New York Times'', December 7, 1986. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> Inspired by early Soviet Agitprop, the monument consisted of a large red megaphone mounted atop a flight of stairs and pointed toward the Lower Manhattan skyline, inviting visitors to air their opinions and grievances.<ref name="Muschamp03">Muschamp, Herbert. [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/arts/the-new-ground-zero-with-a-dubious-idea-of-freedom.html?searchResultPosition=17 "The New Ground Zero … With a Dubious Idea of 'Freedom,'"] ''The New York Times'', August 31, 2003. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Glueck84"/> In 2003, ''New York Times'' architecture critic Herbert Muschamp proposed the project's reconstruction at Ground Zero.<ref name="Muschamp03"/> The following year, Creative Time re-presented it, this time facing the courthouses of Foley Square during American election season;<ref name="Vogel04">Vogel, Carol. [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/arts/inside-art.html?searchResultPosition=5 "Inside Art: A Vocal Expression,"] ''The New York Times'', July 30, 2004. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> it was also part of the Museum of the City of New York exhibition, "Art in the Open," in 2017.<ref name="Travis18">Rebecca Travis [https://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-story-of-public-art-in-new-york-city/ "The story of public art in New York City,"] ''Apollo'', November 20, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref>
===Greeting cards and church signboards (Since 1991)=== thumb|right|240px|Erika Rothenberg, ''America, A Shining Beacon to the World'', Aluminum and felt case, plastic letters, 2018. In the 1990s, Rothenberg began producing satirical, hand-painted works that mimicked the form and generic sentimentality of greeting cards while examining a range of social and political ills and injustices.<ref name="Phillips92">Phillips, Patricia.[https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/199208/erika-rothenberg-57289 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''Artforum'', August 1992. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Curtis94">Curtis, Cathy. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-21-ol-48719-story.html "Erika Rothenberg Sends Subversive, Sarcastic Messages in Her 'Cards,'"] ''Los Angeles Times'', April 21, 1994. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Grabner15"/> She presented ninety of them in the greeting store-styled installation, ''House of Cards'' (1992, MoMA), each one employing the one-two punch strategy of typical cards—an innocuous cover with a gotcha line on the inside—displayed side-by-side.<ref name="Phillips92"/><ref name="Ollman16"/><ref name="Curtis94"/> The installation was organized with section wall plaques reading "Abortion," "Politics," "Racism," "Religion," and "Sexual Abuse," among others.<ref name="Phillips92"/><ref name="Grabner15"/><ref name="Ollman16"/> ''Artforum'''s Patricia Phillips described the show as an assault "against the commercialization of feeling and our own complacency" that sought to "represent the space between silence and sensationalism."<ref name="Phillips92"/>
Rothenberg restaged the exhibition in expanded versions in 2015–18 at Zolla Lieberman (Chicago), Charlie James (Los Angeles) and Susan Inglett (New York).<ref name="Grabner15"/><ref name="Ollman16"/><ref name="Wexelman18"/> The Los Angeles show included the new work, ''One World So Many Ways It Could End'' (2015), a pedestal-based sculpture whose wheel viewers could spin to see sixteen end-of-the-world scenarios ranging from global warming and nuclear war to zombie apocalypse or alien invasion.<ref name="Zellen17">Zellen, Jody. [https://artillerymag.com/erika-rothenberg/ "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''Artillery'', January 10, 2017. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> Reviews characterized the ongoing relevance of the greeting cards as "dismayingly timeless" observations that testified to their original astuteness.<ref name="Ollman16"/><ref name="Zellen17"/>
In 1991, Rothenberg also began creating mock church signboards. They often suggested droll indices of despair in the form of weeklong church activity listings (e.g., AA, teen suicide watch, and "parenting your clone" groups); the first, ''America’s Joyous Future'', was exhibited at Documenta IX in 1992.<ref name="Princenthal92"/><ref name="Lovelace07">Lovelace, Carey. "Girls, Girls, Girls," ''Art in America'', June 2007, p. 89.</ref> Nancy Princenthal described the signboards as indictments of both organized religion and the growing role of disorders in American self-definition and social involvement.<ref name="Princenthal92"/> Rothenberg's work of this time gradually took on a more oblique position and included more sculptural elements.<ref name="Princenthal92"/><ref name="Yood92">Yood, James. [https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/199201/erika-rothenberg-59413 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''Artforum'', January 1992. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Nesbitt94">Nesbitt, Lois. [https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/199401/erika-rothenberg-and-tracy-tynan-54430 "Erika Rothenberg,"] ''Artforum'', January 1994. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> ''Feeding Station'' (1992), for example, was a dense group of upturned, painted plywood profiles straining toward microphones dangling above them—a comment on country's growing need for public attention and psychic amplification.<ref name="Princenthal92"/><ref name="Yood92"/>
===Narrative works (Since 1993)=== Rothenberg’s later work has explored subjects such as death, fame and gender relations, often taking on a more open-ended, narrative dimension inspired by news articles.<ref name="Freudenheim05"/> Her collaboration with Tracy Tynan, "Suicide Notes" (1993–5, Rosamund Felsen, P.P.O.W., Centre for Contemporary Arts), presented seventeen messages left by real-life suicides, which they acquired from an LAPD source.<ref name="Jinks95">Jinks, Peter. "Goodbye Cruel World. Hello Glasgow Art-Lovers," ''The Scotsman'', January 28, 1995.</ref><ref name="Nesbitt94"/> The artists rewrote the notes (also changing names) and attached them to body bags hung against the wall, accompanied by a booklet with assembled quotes and facts about suicide.<ref name="Nesbitt94"/><ref name="Kaufman93">Kaufman, Michael T. [https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/13/nyregion/about-new-york-value-free-examination-of-the-long-goodbye.html?searchResultPosition=4 "Value-Free Examination Of the Long Goodbye,"] ''The New York Times'', October 13, 1993. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Kapitanoff93">Kapitanoff, Nancy. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-28-ca-381-story.html "Pain and Grief Emerge in Exhibit of Suicide Notes,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', February 28, 1993. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> Reviews of the work were divided, with ''The New York Times'' calling it a "profoundly moving exhibit about a subject that most often provokes denial or a turning away,"<ref name="Kaufman93"/> while others questioned whether it exploited or trivialized the subject.<ref name="Kandel93">Kandel, Susan. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-25-ca-601-story.html "Theatrics Skew Intent of 'Suicide Notes,'"] ''Los Angeles Times'', February 25, 1993. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Nesbitt94"/> ''Monument to a Bear'' (2002-3) was a concrete tombstone memorializing a bear cub burned in a fire, then rescued by firefighters and nursed back to health at a wildlife shelter before being released into the wild—only to be legally shot by a hunter. The sculpture re-created the cub's head and bandaged paws alongside a bronze plaque presenting the Associated Press story it derived from.<ref name="Freudenheim05"/>
Several projects offered what ''Art Issues'' called a "more gentle understanding" of gender issues.<ref name="Forgacs97">Forgács, Éva. "Erika Rothenberg," ''Art Issues'', January/February 1997, p. 38.</ref><ref name="Freudenheim05"/> Rothenberg's 1997 show at Rosamund Felsen included the ''Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'' series, which presented people's relationship stories—good, bad and ugly.<ref name="Forgacs97"/> "The Stravinskys" series (2005) explored fame and death through photographs of the gravesites of 20th-century composer Igor Stravinsky and his wife Vera—identical except that his is strewn with gifts while hers is marked only by a bunch of dead flowers at its foot.<ref name="Freudenheim05"/>
===Public art=== Rothenberg has completed public art commissions for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Hartford and Philadelphia.<ref name="CRALA">CRA/LA (Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles). [http://www.crala.org/internet-site/Other/Art_Program/artist_list/erika_rothenberg.cfm Erika Rothenberg], Art Projects. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Avalos90">Andy Avalos, Andy. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-11-ca-92-story.html They Get Message Across in a Big Way,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', August 11, 1990. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Womack21">Womack, Catherine. [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-09-06/hollywood-highland-artwork-destroyed "Demolition begins on an acclaimed piece of L.A. public art,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', September 6, 2021. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> Notable projects in addition to Freedom of Expression National Monument (1984) include several billboard works (two for Art Against AIDS, 1989) and two City of Los Angeles-commissioned works: ''Wall of Un(Fame)''(1995) and ''The Road to Hollywood'' (2001).<ref name="Avalos90"/><ref name="Peterson93">Peterson, Thair. "Wanted: Names, Prints for Station," ''Long Beach Press-Telegram'', August 17, 1993.</ref><ref name="Womack21"/> ''The Wall of Un(Fame)'' was a play on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, immortalizing the names, handprints and footprints of over 650 residents of nearby communities.<ref name="Peterson93"/> ''The Road to Hollywood'' consisted of fifty succinct, black and white marble mosaic-texts—funny, poignant and straightforward stories of how people got started in Hollywood—embedded in a winding "red carpet" at a shopping center adjacent to the Kodak Theatre, home to the Academy Awards. The path led up to an oversized, period-styled, fiberglass daybed on an open patio overlooking the mythic Hollywood Sign.<ref name="Knight01">Knight, Christopher. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-30-et-galleries30-story.html "The 'Road' Daringly Traveled,"] ''Los Angeles Times'', November 30, 2001. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Freudenheim05"/><ref name="Ryzik17">Ryzik, Melena and Jim Rutenberg, Rachel Abrams. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/business/media/harvey-weinsteins-fall-opens-the-floodgates-in-hollywood.html?searchResultPosition=14 "Harvey Weinstein’s Fall Opens the Floodgates in Hollywood,"] ''The New York Times'', October 16, 2017. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> Christopher Knight ranked it "among the best public art projects in L.A.," one that gave "surprising new life" to pop clichés.<ref name="Knight01"/> In 2020, despite preservation efforts and press outcry, new owners demolished the work as part of a property makeover.<ref name="Womack21"/>
==Collections and other recognition== Rothenberg's work belongs to numerous museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago,<ref name="IC">I.C. Editions. [https://www.iceditions.com/artists/erika-rothenberg Erika Rothenberg], Artists. Retrieved March 14, 2022.</ref> FAE Musée d'Art Contemporain (Lausanne), Los Angeles County Museum of Art,<ref name="LACMA"/> Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago,<ref name="MCAC2"/> Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles,<ref name="MOCA"/> Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami,<ref name="MOCANM">Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami. [https://mocanomi.org/2013/06/erika-rothenberg/ Erika Rothenberg], Permanent Collection. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> Museum of Modern Art,<ref name="MoMA92"/> New Museum,<ref name="NM"/> Orange County Museum of Art,<ref name="OCMA">Orange County Museum of Art. [https://ocma.art/2016-004-012-a-e_rothenberg-1/ Erika Rothenberg], Collection. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> Rose Art Museum,<ref name="Rose">Rose Art Museum. [https://rosecollection.brandeis.edu/artist-maker/info/3500 Erika Rothenberg], Artists. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent),<ref name="SMAK"/> Tang Museum,<ref name="Tang">Tang Museum. [https://tang.skidmore.edu/collection/artist/1762-erika-rothenberg?per=224&sort_by=artist-desc Erika Rothenberg], Collection. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> and Walker Art Center,<ref name="Walker">Walker Art Center. [https://walkerart.org/collections/artworks/americas-joyous-future ''America's Joyous Future'', Erika Rothenberg], Collection. Retrieved March 10, 2022.</ref> among others. She has been awarded grants from Art Matters (1990), the Norton Family Foundation (1990), and the Getty Center (1993).<ref name="Avalos90"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.erikarothenberg.com Erika Rothenberg website] *[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/373 Erika Rothenberg project], MoMA *[http://lagunaartmuseum.org/erika-rothenberg/ Erika Rothenberg], Laguna Art Museum *[https://www.cjamesgallery.com/artists/erika-rothenberg Erika Rothenberg] artist page, Charlie James
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rothenberg, Erika}} Category:20th-century American women artists Category:21st-century American women artists Category:American conceptual artists Category:American feminist artists Category:Artists from New York City Category:The High School of Music & Art alumni Category:Living people Category:1955 births Category:20th-century American artists Category:21st-century American artists