Judith Bernstein
"Two Heads", 2024
Acrylic paint on yellow paper
25 ½ x 20 inches (64.8 x 50.8 cm)
Courtesy of the Artist

Selected by Anthony Huberman

Artist statement:

My rage at injustice is the core of my art. For this reason, my work merges the personal with the political, and my lived experience becomes a mediator of the broader human folly played out on a global scale. My use of sexual imagery is meant to underscore this polarity of personal/ political since it is at the core of the sexual act itself. After all, pleasure has long been the bedfellow of power.

Artist bio:

Since graduating from Yale in 1967, Bernstein has developed a reputation as one of the most unwaveringly provocative artists of her generation. Steadfast in her cultural, political and social critique for over 50 years, she surged into art world prominence in the early 1970’s with her monumental charcoal drawings of penis-screw hybrids; early incarnations of which were exhibited at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooks Jackson Iolas Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, and MoMA P.S.1, among other institutions. In reviewing Bernstein’s 2012-13 solo exhibition at the New Museum, Ken Johnson, critic at the NYTimes, referred to these words as “bravura performances of draftsmanship” and “masterpieces of feminine protest”. Bernstein was a founding member of A.I.R. Gallery – the first all-female artists gallery in the United States – and an early member of Guerrilla Girls, Art Workers’ Coalition and Fight Censorship.

Bernstein has work in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Whitney

Museum; MoCA; LACMA; the Brooklyn Museum; Jewish Museum; Kunsthaus Zurich; Migros Museum; Carnegie Museum of Art; Deste Foundation; Neuberger Museum; Hall Art Foundation; Yale Art Gallery. She was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016. 

She is represented by Kasmin Gallery NY, The Box LA, and Karma International Zurich.