100 Chances For Happiness.
2005
100 hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas, each umbrella has a 6 inch diameter.
dimensions variable
Palm Trees Growing Back After A Tropical Storm
2006
hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas
dimensions variable
Constant Comment
2006
hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas
dimensions variable
July 4th
2006
hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas
dimensions variable
Waterdrops
2009
hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas
Joey
2009
hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas
Joey (detail)
Hibiscus
2009
hand painted bronze cocktail umbrellas
Three Chances For Happiness, 2009
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Beep Po, 2008
32/88 inches
acrylic on canvas
One Chance For Happiness, 2009
88/34 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara. 2011
45/78 inches
acrylic on canvas
Green Branches, 2009
58/96 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara 2, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara 3, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara 4, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara 5, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara 6, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Niagara 7, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
Glint
Each panel 18/12
Polymer on copper
Husband, 2011
20/16 inches
acrylic on canvas
DejeunerDejeuner, 2006
mixed media on wood
36/43 inches
Ikebana 19, 2005
57/57 inches
mixed media on wood
Balls, 2005
57/57 inches
mixed media on wood
About
Weinstein began using the image of the cocktail umbrella in 2004. He was in Kathmandu, Nepal, working on a series of sculptures for an exhibition at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. He had brought a package of them with him, thinking that they could somehow be transformed into a sculpture. He became interested in the local Thangka painters. He commissioned one hundred bronze parasols and then worked with the local painters to reproduce the patterns from the paper ones on to the bronze ones. The piece was not finished in time so one hundred of these illusionistic parasols arrived in his studio. Weinstein began to make patterns with them by sticking them into the wall. He bagan to arrange them in loose rectangles, following the logic of painting composition. He asked a computer programmer to make a program to create infinite combinations of them. If there are 25 of each type, and you want the greatest possible spread between each type, and you want them to form a loose rectangular grid, what will these combinations look like? It turned out that they all looked like convinving compositions that could have been thought up by a human being. Randomly selecting one for the template, Weinstein then created his first parasol piece, One Hundred Chances For Happiness. Like the frisbee, which Weinstein used in Ed Headrick and Triumph Of Painting, the cocktail parasol is a symbol of American aspiration; not towards the future (frisbee) but to a fantasy about the good life. Working in Kathmandu, the parasol was also an acknowledgement that Weinstein was himself indulging himself in exoticism. Weinstein began painting the parasols and they became a recurring theme in his work. They appear in animated form in his animated film, Bolero, 2012.
