Judith Bernstein: Angry Bitches: Independent Art Fair

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 Truth, Justice, and Liberty to the more sinister Evil and Fear (all 1995), and the humorous and outrageous Angry Bitches (2009).

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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 Liberty, Justice, Evil, 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.

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.