Judith Bernstein at Art Basel: Booth D15

Messe Basel
Messeplatz 10, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

​Kasmin returns to Art Basel in Basel with a solo presentation of work by New York-based artist Judith Bernstein (b. 1942), on view in the Feature sector from June 17 through June 22, 2025. At Art Basel, Bernstein will debut a never-before-exhibited, 22-foot painting on canvas—The Dance (After Matisse) (1993)—which was realized in direct response to Henri Matisse’s pair of Dance paintings (1909-10). A curated selection of charcoals on paper will also be featured, including a regrouping of anthropomorphic screw drawings first shown in a historic solo exhibition at the Brooks Jackson Iolas Gallery in 1978. Spanning two decades, this focused presentation highlights the enduring political urgency, sharp humor, and radical commitment to feminist practices that have hallmarked Bernstein’s career for nearly 60 years. Following Bernstein’s critically-acclaimed New York solo exhibition at Kasmin in January 2025, the presentation at Art Basel looks forward to the artist’s career retrospective at Kunsthaus Zurich (Chipperfield Extension) in 2026.

Bernstein’s The Dance (After Matisse) (1993) will be featured prominently along the entirety of a single wall. Realized by applying graphite sticks into oil paint with broad gestures, the painting features two phallic figures dancing across the canvas as one of Bernstein’s “Active Shooters” appears at right. It visually cites Matisse’s canonical Dance paintings from the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which were reunited in Matisse’s retrospective at MoMA in 1992-93. In The Dance (After Matisse), Bernstein responds to Matisse’s expressive rendering of the group of figures: “When I saw the show I realized that there were no phalluses on any of them,” the artist has said. As the New York art world reeled from the AIDS crisis and impacts of the 1980s culture wars, Bernstein subverted the unspoken sexuality of Matisse’s famous composition to create an allegory of euphoria in the face of cultural turmoil. Reimagining the scene through the lens of the phallus—a symbol of power she has claimed in her work since the 1960s—the painting inspires a cultural critique that remains as urgent today as ever.

The Dance (After Matisse) holds a unique place in Bernstein’s oeuvre, representing her largest commitment to canvas in the 1990s—a decade in which the artist’s work was rarely exhibited. In 1974, just one year after Bernstein’s first solo exhibition, the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum refused to exhibit a large, phallic charcoal screw drawing by Bernstein despite protest by Lucy Lippard, Linda Nochlin, Louise Bourgeois and many other artists, critics, and curators. The once-censored Horizontal, 1973, was acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2023. But the controversy lingered over Bernstein’s career for some 30 years, before a 2012 survey exhibition at the New Museum in New York reintroduced the artist’s work to broad public view. During this time, Bernstein never wavered in her artistic vision, continuing to create large-scale work that employed tongue-in-cheek humor and biting social critique.

Also on view will be a selection of charcoal screw drawings—including a 10-foot high example—which Bernstein exhibited at Brooks Jackson Iolas Gallery, New York, in 1978. The legendary gallerists Alexander Iolas and Brooks Jackson, at the encouragement and introduction of artist William N. Copley, proved key supporters of Bernstein’s work after 1974. Bernstein began this groundbreaking body of work as the Vietnam War waged on, and they have since become her most recognizable motif. These “masterpieces of feminist protest,” as described by Ken Johnson of The New York Times, are a keystone of Bernstein’s conflation of war and sexual aggression. Blending mechanical imagery with the bodily and fetishistic, each is rendered in an explosive manner that reignites the momentous energy they inspired nearly 50 years ago. Paired with The Dance (After Matisse), Bernstein’s screw drawings attest to the artist’s raw resilience and unapologetic drive.

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