{"id":14949,"date":"2017-11-07T11:44:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T10:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/?p=14949"},"modified":"2017-11-07T12:00:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T11:00:50","slug":"judith-bernstein-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Judith Bernstein: Men have the organ, but they don\u2019t own the image"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-14949 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/jb_by-paul-laster\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"95\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/JB_by-Paul-Laster-480x304.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Judith Bernstein\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14959\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14959'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, ph. Paul Laster.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/09b8213fd31a98ef7dc52f37d7b9212afce6e98d\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/09b8213fd31a98ef7dc52f37d7b9212afce6e98d-480x361.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Judith Bernstein\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14953\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14953'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, Cunt Trump, 2017. Acrylic on paper, 48 x 62 inch, courtesy of the artist.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/9a2caf4378e06299e18d51c479d07898f1e6c640\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/9a2caf4378e06299e18d51c479d07898f1e6c640-480x363.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Judith Bernstein\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14954\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14954'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, Trump asteroids, 2017. Acrylic and oil on paper, 49.5 x 59 inch, courtesy of the artist.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/9d4bb526dc5b1ecd3a870c9f2664490a8246c279\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"98\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/9d4bb526dc5b1ecd3a870c9f2664490a8246c279-313x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14955\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14955'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, Trump Genie, 2016. Acrylic on paper, 29 x 41 inch, courtesy of the artist.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/950eecfc5a5486b31697e3c88c8ac1ba522da94d\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/950eecfc5a5486b31697e3c88c8ac1ba522da94d-480x362.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Judith Bernstein\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14956\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14956'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, Fear, charcoal on paper, 1995, 47,5 x 63 inch, courtesy of the artist.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/c7096c8dc792def740dffbc3c4f372e2db38f145\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"148\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/c7096c8dc792def740dffbc3c4f372e2db38f145-475x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Judith Bernstein\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14957\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14957'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, Seal of disbelief, 2017. Mixed media on paper, 96 x 96 inch, courtesy of the artist.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2017\/11\/07\/judith-bernstein-interview\/feec1152a778d9e45c4f3696494c22210c1d0940\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"103\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/feec1152a778d9e45c4f3696494c22210c1d0940-331x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-14958\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-14958'>\n\t\t\t\tJudith Bernstein, Cabinet of horrors, acrylic on paper, 41,5 x 29.5 inch, courtesy of the artist.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>An expressionist painter who has been confronting conservative gender politics for more than 50 years, Judith Bernstein was a founding member of the A.I.R. Gallery \u2014 the first gallery devoted to showing female artists \u2014 and an early member of Guerilla Girls, Art Workers Coalition and Fight Censorship. Best known for her paintings and drawings of dicks, in which the phallus symbolizes both sexual freedom and male aggression, Bernstein recently turned her artistic attention to President Trump, whom she sees as the biggest and dumbest dick of all. Conceptual Fine Arts caught up with the 75-year-old artist in her loft in Chinatown, where she has lived and worked for the past five decades, to discuss her \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.drawingcenter.org\/en\/drawingcenter\/5\/exhibitions\/6\/current\/1656\/judith-bernstein\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cabinet of Horrors\u201d exhibition at the Drawing Center in New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>How long have you been drawing dicks?<\/p>\n<p><em>I started drawing dicks when I was a student at Yale in 1966. I was doing anti-war work about Vietnam and focused on the dick as a symbol of male aggression. They were anti-war, feminist and sexual all rolled into one image.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What was it that made you decide to turn screws into dicks?<\/p>\n<p><em>It was a combination of a screw and a phallus\u2014kind of a hybrid. It was the Pop Art period and I was thinking screw, screw, being screwed as a play on words. They took on a life of their own, becoming hairy, fetishistic and biomorphic\u2014something that was more than mechanical.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Were you also dealing with formal issues?<\/p>\n<p><em>It\u2019s all a continuum going back to Mesopotamia. At Yale I read an article in the New York Times that said Edward Albee got the title of his play Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf from bathroom graffiti so I went into the men\u2019s room and found inspiration. I\u2019m interested in energy. I want the image to be explosive. And I also like tag lines, like cock and cunt. I\u2019ve been using \u201ccuntface\u201d a lot lately, and for this specific show it\u2019s been s\u201dchlongface,\u201d for Donald Trump.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What other ways have you used dicks in your work?<\/p>\n<p><em>My work is very political. I\u2019ve used the dick to comment on sex and war. Sex is so guttural, so much a part of life. With the dick you have the erection and ejaculation, a tremendous amount of explosion. I made a drawing in 1967 called Fun-Gun that\u2019s an anatomical drawing of a cock with a trigger on it. It has real bullets attached to the nut sack. It was last exhibited in my 2012 New Museum survey.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Is there a psychological aspect to your use of dicks?<\/p>\n<p><em>Absolutely, there\u2019s always a psychological aspect to it. When I make drawings that are 9 by 30 feet it\u2019s like mine\u2019s bigger than yours. Men have the organ, but they don\u2019t own the image. I can do whatever I want with it. I can make it as large as I want. It infantilizes men when they see it because the scale is so enormous. It\u2019s become a metaphor for so many issues, not only sex and war.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Did you ever get into any disputes with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2015\/04\/21\/in-dialogue-with-valeria-napoleone-and-the-bright-side-of-emerging-art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fellow feminists<\/a> about dealing with this kind of male subject, which could almost be interpreted as worship?<\/p>\n<p><em>Sometimes people are not quite sure to make of my dicks, especially when they see the aggrandizement. I\u2019m making a comment, but I\u2019m also buying into it. As a result, I\u2019ve been left out of a lot of feminist exhibitions, for example Wack!, which was at MOCA LA and MoMA PS1 in 2007. I was left out of that show because a number of people felt that dick art is not feminist. But I\u2019m actually observing the guys, making a social comment and taking on that image.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pardon the pun, but did the dicks lead to the cunts, your \u201ccuntface\u201d paintings and drawings?<\/p>\n<p><em>Yes, I had been doing these dick paintings and drawings for a while and I wanted to actually get into some \u201cfeminist\u201d imagery. I had always been observing women, too. Art history represents vaginas that have been romanticized. I don\u2019t feel that way at all. My mother was an angry woman. She didn\u2019t like her life. I was also part of a lot of feminist groups, for example Fight Censorship with Louise Bourgeois, Anita Steckel and Joan Semmel, and the Guerilla Girls. The women in these groups felt that they were entitled to be part of the art world\u2014which they were entitled to be\u2014but they didn\u2019t get it. They wanted access to the system. I saw a lot of that rage and anger and I have a lot of rage and anger, too. I don\u2019t leave myself out of the critique, but I want to keep it in the drawings and paintings. I\u2019m not angry in general. I lot of people have this amorphous anger that goes all over. I don\u2019t have that at all. I\u2019m sympathetic to men. Women have it harder, but I\u2019m still sympathetic to men.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In a previous interview you said that you used \u201cBig Bang\u2013style explosive strokes\u201d in these paintings. I like that description. Where did it originate?<\/p>\n<p><em>I made the analogy between the big bang, the birth of the universe and women. It\u2019s interesting to make that connection. There\u2019s so much more interest in the universe nowadays. When I was a kid there was just Captain Video and his Video Rangers, a TV show where there were three planets. We obviously had 11 or something like that, but nevertheless we didn\u2019t have the information that we have now about planets, about life. It\u2019s really mind-blowing. I use big bang and explosiveness for women in terms of anger and birth and their importance, by putting them at the center of it all.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Art historically, are you also riffing on Courbet\u2019s controversial painting The Origin of the World?<\/p>\n<p><em>Yes, but I want it to be more than a romanticized view of women, or men for that fact, or whatever. Sexuality is now on a continuum. It\u2019s much more complex, much more interesting and much more nuanced that it ever was. Before it was gay or straight or maybe bi, but now it\u2019s much more complicated and much more interesting.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When did you start making words works and why?<\/p>\n<p><em>I had used words to name pieces, but then I started making these charcoal word works in the mid-\u201880s. I love charcoal. It\u2019s my favorite medium. I like the way that rich, rich charcoal looks. I like the sensuality of it; I like the nuance of it; and I literally like hands-on nature of it. I like getting filthy. One of the first pieces was a big wall mural of my name. Then I began using words that were psychological at the time, like White Rage and Black Holes. In this specific show I have Equality, Evil, Fear, Justice and Liberty, which are very poignant things.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the idea behind your \u201ccockman\u201d and \u201ccockhead\u201d works?<\/p>\n<p><em>I first made my cockman image in 1966. It was the piece Cockman Shall Rise Again, which was about George Wallace, a very reactionary governor from Alabama. I made it again in 2015 as Cockman Always Rises, which referenced Donald Trump. The issue, however, is bigger than Donald Trump. The Drawing Center show is centered on Donald Trump, but it\u2019s not just about him. It\u2019s about the times we live in and the society that actually created this guy. It\u2019s really terrifying. It\u2019s like Nazism when Hitler came to power.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What is it about Trump that makes him a good candidate for your \u201ccockman\u201d works?<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh my god \u2014 if you want the truth of it \u2014 I couldn\u2019t get a better candidate. He\u2019s a fool. He\u2019s a monster. He\u2019s a jester. He\u2019s a sexist. And he\u2019s a racist. He\u2019s also a con man, who\u2019s using the White House for his own cash machine. He\u2019s the perfect subject for cockman. He just fell in my lap, so to say. I use the term cockman in a very negative way, because sometime people can think of that as being something positive. There\u2019s nothing positive about this man. If there is a positive, it\u2019s that he\u2019s better than Hitler so far, but that\u2019s not saying much.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the title of your show, \u201cCabinet of Horrors\u201d, represent?<\/p>\n<p><em>I see all of the people in the U.S. Cabinet as clones of Trump. He picked people like himself. He picked people to destroy the areas that they were supposed to protect. I see it as a Cabinet of Horrors, and Trump as the biggest horror of all. One of the drawings is titled Frankenschlong, which shows Trump as a Frankenstein-like monster and I put him on a three-dollar bill because he\u2019s a fake.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Is this work meant to be satirical or a dead-on affront?<\/p>\n<p><em>It\u2019s a dead-on affront. In the past I didn\u2019t always target a person. I did do a piece in 1967 on LBJ, which the Whitney Museum also owns, and I was thinking of the ditty, \u201cHey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?\u201d when I made it. I also did a piece in 1969 on Nixon, First National Dick, but very rarely have I targeted individuals. Trump is the dumbest dick of all. He\u2019s so dumb he doesn\u2019t even know how dumb he is. It\u2019s all about him. He couldn\u2019t care less about anything else. It\u2019s his Trump universe. He\u2019s been elected by television culture. His background is Miss Universe and \u201cYou\u2019re fired.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Besides the comparison of Trump to Hitler and Nazis you also deal with him in some feminist ways in the pieces All-American Spread Eagle and Money Shot.<\/p>\n<p><em>I use a lot of American symbols because he\u2019s screwing around and cumming all over them\u2014the flag, the White House, the Capital, the presidential seal, the dollar bill\u2014anything that\u2019s important to us. One of the Money Shot pieces is Trump with Kim Jong-Un and in another he\u2019s facing off Putin. They\u2019re fantasies about guys getting together to see who has the longest dick and end up shooting each other in the face. And then there are ones with the Treasury as a slot machine and the Capital as the jackpot. But I do feminize Trump in All-American Spread Eagle, which shows the Seal of the President of the United States in the crotch of a woman. Trump always has to be more macho than everyone else, which is such a ruse. When people are that macho they\u2019re hiding something. It\u2019s really about fear, the fear of the father. The one that I did with Kim Jong-Un I named World War III, but I hope to god that there\u2019s no connection.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feminist pioneer Judith Bernstein points the finger at Donald Trump, but her solo show at the Drawing Center in NY is not just about him. It&#8217;s about us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1797],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-dialogue-with"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}