Judith Bernstein: Angry Bitches: Independent Art Fair

May 11 – 14, 2023
  • Kasmin is thrilled to present ANGRY BITCHES, the first focused exhibition of Judith Bernstein’s Word Drawings (1989-2009) on the occasion of the Independent Art Fair in May 2023. Expressionistically rendered in charcoal on paper, these works depict texts in an explosively gestural manner, recalling the artist’s iconic anthropomorphic screw drawings from 1969 onwards, as well as Signature Piece (1986), a mural-scaled drawing of the artist’s own name. Bernstein’s choices of words range from the stately TruthJustice, and Liberty to the more sinister Evil and Fear (all 1995), and the humorous and outrageous Angry Bitches (2009).

  • Bernstein’s Word Drawings offer multiple interpretations, oscillating from the enigmatic to the ominous. Distinct from a lineage of text-based Conceptual practices by John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Joseph Kosuth, and Barbara Kruger, Bernstein’s Word Drawings stand alone in their resolute exaggerations of the artist’s gestural handwriting. Words have appeared in Bernstein’s work as early as the 1960s, when the artist, then a graduate student at the Yale School of Art, would mimic the expressive style of graffiti found in men’s restrooms to create her antiwar Fuck Vietnam series. Bernstein would continue to incorporate writing into her painting series, including Cockman (1966), Birth of the Universe (2012), Death Universe (2018), and Gaslighting (2019), which debuted at Kasmin in 2021.

    Bernstein’s Word Drawings debuted to the public in the artist’s solo exhibition Cabinet of Horrors at The Drawing Center, New York (2017-18). These included LibertyJusticeEvil, and Fear alongside Equality, which was acquired by the Zabludowicz Collection in 2021. In 2022, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. acquired the work Freedom. Additional works from this series are held in the Burger Collection, Hong Kong and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY. The exhibition follows the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent acquisition of Bernstein’s iconic work Horizontal (1973), a 9 x 12 ½-foot charcoal drawing of a phallic screw rendered in her signature emphatic style. Once censored from public view despite protests from major artists, curators, and critics, the work is now widely celebrated as an exemplar of feminist critique, and the acquisition marks Bernstein’s first work in the museum’s renowned permanent collection.

     

    About the Artist

    Steadfast in cultural, political, and social critique for over fifty years, Judith Bernstein (b. 1942, Newark, NJ) has developed a reputation as one of the most unwaveringly provocative artists of her generation. After receiving an MFA from Yale University in 1967, Bernstein moved to New York, where she has lived and worked ever since. A founding member of A.I.R., the first gallery dedicated to exhibiting women artists, Bernstein was involved in key art and activist organizations, such as the Guerilla Girls, the Art Workers’ Coalition, and Fight Censorship. Bernstein’s monumental charcoal drawings of penis-screw hybrids launched her into art world prominence in the early 1970s; early examples of these works were exhibited at A.I.R. and Brooks Jackson Iolas Gallery, as well as the Brooklyn Museum and MoMA PS1, among other institutions. In reviewing Bernstein’s 2012-13 solo exhibition HARD at New York’s New Museum, New York Times critic Ken Johnson referred to these works as “bravura performances of draftsmanship” and “masterpieces of feminine protest.”1

    Bernstein has been the recipient of numerous awards over the course of her five-decade career. In 2016, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation recognized Bernstein’s accomplishments in the fine arts by awarding the artist its prestigious annual fellowship, and the National Academy of Design elected Bernstein a member of the National Academicians. Additional notable accolades include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art in 2019.

    Bernstein has been the subject of institutional solo exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York (2017-18); the New Museum, New York (2012-13), Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2016), and Studio Voltaire, London (2014). She has also exhibited at Kunsthaus Zurich (2021); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2020); the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (2019); Migros Museum, Zurich (2019 and 2015); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (2019); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2013). Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Jewish Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, among others.

    1 Ken Johnson, “Once Banished, Never Silenced,” The New York Times (December 21, 2012): C30.

    Artworks © 2023 Judith Bernstein. Courtesy of the artist.
    Outdoor photography: Diego Flores.
    Freedom: Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum. Museum purchase, 2022.30A,B.
    Equality: Courtesy Zabludowicz Collection.

     

     

  • Works
    • Judith Bernstein, Angry Bitches (Birth of the Screw), 2009
      Judith Bernstein, Angry Bitches (Birth of the Screw), 2009
    • Judith Bernstein, Evil, 1995
      Judith Bernstein, Evil, 1995
    • Judith Bernstein, Justice, 1995
      Judith Bernstein, Justice, 1995
    • Judith Bernstein, Liberty, 1995
      Judith Bernstein, Liberty, 1995
    • Judith Bernstein, Fear, 1995
      Judith Bernstein, Fear, 1995
    • Judith Bernstein, Female, 2019
      Judith Bernstein, Female, 2019
    • Judith Bernstein, Truth, 1995
      Judith Bernstein, Truth, 1995
    • Zabludowicz Collection
      Zabludowicz Collection
    • Smithsonian American Art Museum
      Smithsonian American Art Museum