Judith Bernstein
dal 6/5/2015 al 26/6/2015
Segnalato da
6/5/2015
Judith Bernstein
Mary Boone Gallery, New York
Voyeur. In this exhibition, however, female genitalia fill the large-scale canvases, Bernstein employs a direct and in-your-face approach to painting that combines a 'figure' (the cunt) as scaffolding based on sweeping, elaborated, abstract strokes.
Curated by Piper Marshall
Judith Bernstein is a painter whose direct, expressionistic work has for fift
y years
confronted conservative gender politics with sexual aggression. She was a founding
member of A.I.R. Gallery (the first gallery devoted to showing female artists) and an
early member of Guerrilla Girls, Art Workers’ Coalition, and Fight Censorship.
Spontaneous descriptions of Judith Bernstein’s paintings begin with the statement that
she politicizes female and male aggression and eroticism. Since 1964, there has been a
rich flow of ferocious, disturbing portrayals. Bernstein has regularly painted the war-time
phallus alone and in pairs.
n this exhibition, however, female genitalia fill the large-scale canvases, Bernstein
employs a direct and in-your-face approach to painting that combines a “figure” (the
“cunt”) as scaffolding based on sweeping, elaborated, abstract strokes. The associative
possibilities of the cunt are unmatched by almost any other figure. Starting with graffiti-
like depictions, the cosmic and fecund content of the imagery continues throughout the
six paintings on view in this exhibition. In
CRYING CUNTFACE
, the genital is a head with
horn-like cock eyes.
QUATTRO CUNT
is a grid of four open faces shooting phallic-eyed
glares at one another. These works maintain a demeanor of abandon, a quality unique
to the property of psycho-sexual politics in their most chaotic, unrestrained, and zany
states. These attributes drive the use of the cunt as an unrepressed symbol of sexuality
and power; they are watching you.
Bernstein’s paintings satirize the expression of male ego, specifically Pollock-like painters
who execute ritual to bring the body back into the image. The punch line is that Bernstein
gives it better, harder, faster, longer.
Bernstein’s recent exhibitions include
Judith Bernstein: Hard
at the New Museum in
New York and
Judith Bernstein: Rising
at Studio Voltaire London. Her work is in many
collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of
American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Jewish Museum, New York.
Image: Judith Bernstein, BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE #4, 96” by 96”, oil/canvas, 2012
Opening: thuerday 7 May 2015
Mary Boone Gallery
745 Fifth Avenue
Tue - Sat 10am to 6pm