Emma Bee Bernstein, Exquisite Fucking Boredom: Polaroids at Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn)

Exquisite Fucking Boredom
Polaroids by Emma Bee Bernstein
May 24 - June 25, 2012
curated by Phong Bui
Opening Reception Thursday, May 24, 6-9pm

Microscope Gallery is very pleased to present Exquisite Fucking Boredom, Polaroid images by
artist/writer Emma Bee Bernstein (1985-2008). With intimate as well as often staged
photographs of the artist and her close friends, Bernstein – who committed suicide in Venice,
Italy at the age of 23 – transforms the spontaneous, on-the-spot Polaroid aesthetic into a
generational portrait of hyper-self-conscious, passionately alluring young women and men taking
on adulthood with deadly serious abandon. The more than 200 photographs in Exquisite Fucking
Boredom were taken during Bernstein’s college years, 2003 to 2007 and have never before been
seen. The photographs have been assembled from Bernstein’s personal archive and private diary
notebooks, which will also be on view.

Bernstein who earned a BA in Visual Arts and Art History from the University of Chicago writes,
“The perfect projection of the internal imagined self, if it exists, only does so for the duration of
the photographic performance.” Bernstein is indebted to the photography of Robert
Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Francesca Woodman, and Cindy
Sherman. Her works are marked by an acute awareness of the fleeting and temporary nature of
existence. The Polaroid series are just one of several bodies of photographic works by the artist
who also worked with 35mm film and digital formats.

"... [Bernstein's work] is consistent in tone, with an atmosphere of tension, verging on
discomfort though interlaced with humor, and a guardedness that never relaxes.”
-- Holland Cotter, The New York Times

Bernstein’s short film Exquisite Fucking Boredom (2006) also will be shown during the course of
the exhibit. And, film-maker Henry Hills will premiere on June 18 a new 80-minute version
of Emma’s Dilemma, a film that documents Bernstein’s adolescent years (1997-2002), and
features her conversations with Carolee Schneemann, Jackson Mac Low, Ken Jacobs, Richard
Foreman, Keith Sanborn, Lee Ann Brown, Susan Howe, Kenneth Goldsmith, and others.

EMMA BEE BERNSTEIN’s works have been previously exhibited in solo shows at the University of
Chicago and Janet Kurnatowski Gallery in New York. Her work has also exhibited at A.I.R.
Gallery, NYC, the Smart Museum, Chicago, and at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her
book GirlDrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism, co-authored with Nona Willis
Aronowitz, was published by Seal Press in 2009. Belladonna #4, which features her writing and
photographs, was published in 2009.

PHONG BUI is an artist, writer, independent curator (curatorial advisor at MoMA PS1 2007 –
2010) and publisher of The Brooklyn Rail.

MICROSCOPE GALLERY presents the works of film, video, sound, new media and performance
artists from the emerging to pioneers of their art forms. The gallery is located in Bushwick
Brooklyn and opened in September of 2010.

Selected images of the show are available for preview upon request.

More info at: www.microscopegallery.com

MICROSCOPE Gallery
4 Charles Place
Brooklyn, NY 11221
Gallery Hours: Thurs. to Mon. 1-6PM,
or by appointment
info---@---microscopegallery.com
Tel: 347.925.1433
nearest subway: J/M/Z - Myrtle/Broadway
other options: L - Morgan Ave or Jefferson Street