Horizontal
Bernstein, one of the pioneers of Feminist Art in the early 1970s, was a founding member of the women’s art cooperative A.I.R. Gallery, where this work made its important debut in her first exhibition there in autumn 1973. Bernstein’s early works, such as this one, drawn on large horizontal or vertical scrolls of paper, depict enormous screws that bear no uncertain resemblance to male genitalia. She intended them to be overpowering in their massive scale and use of deep-black medium and explicit in their critique of male patriarchy and its hegemonic power. Horizontal’s infamy grew further after it was removed from a 1974 exhibition in Philadelphia, despite the resounding protest against its censorship from a wide group of prominent artists and critics of the day.
Artwork Details
- Title: Horizontal
- Artist: Judith Bernstein (American, born Newark 1942)
- Date: 1973
- Medium: Charcoal on paper
- Dimensions: 8 ft. 11 1/8 in. × 12 ft. 6 1/4 in. (272.1 × 381.6 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg Fund, in memory of William S. Lieberman, 2023
- Object Number: 2023.115
- Rights and Reproduction: © Judith Bernstein
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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