Judith Bernstein

Emalin is pleased to present Truth and Chaos, Judith Bernstein’s first exhibition in London in over a decade. The exhibition comprises works spanning thirty years of Bernstein’s practice. Direct and confrontational, they are inspired by outrage and violence, the American military industrial complex and the private scribbles of the Yale University men’s bathroom stalls. The exhibition presents historical works from her 1990s ‘word drawings’ series alongside the maximalist phallic screw drawings that Bernstein has been making since 1969 and that initiated her complicated relationship with censorship and popular recognition amidst 1970s second-wave feminism.

Judith Bernstein (b. 1942 in Newark, New Jersey) lives and works in New York. She received an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 1967. Solo exhibitions include Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (2025, upcoming); Karma International, Zurich, Switzerland (2022); Kasmin Gallery, New York (2021); The Drawing Center, New York (2017); The Box, Los Angeles (2017); Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2016); Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York (2014); Studio Voltaire, London (2014); New Museum, New York (2012); and A.I.R. Gallery, New York (1984). Bernstein’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz, Austria (2023); Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland (2023); Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (2022); The Jewish Museum, New York (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2020); Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (2019); Bonner Kunstverein, Germany (2019); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); ICA, London (2013); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (1996); MoMA PS1, New York (1979); and the 38th Venice Biennale, Italy (1978).

Bernstein’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Deste Foundation, Athens; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Smithsonian Institute, Washington; The Jewish Museum, New York; Kunsthaus Zurich; Migros Museum, Zurich; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington; Art Institute of Chicago; Sammlung Verbund, Vienna; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. She was the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.