Felix Bernstein
...is the author of the poetry collection, Burn Book (Nightboat), and a book of essays, Notes on Post-Conceptual Poetry (Insert Blanc Press), which the New York Times noted for its “blistering cultural criticism.” Notes was also selected as a Best of 2015 by Artforum. His writing has been featured in Art in America, Poetry Magazine, Spike Arts Magazine, Bomb, Mousse, May Revue, Bookforum and Texte Zur Kunst.
Bernstein collaborates with the artist Gabe Rubin on works of theater, film, poetry, and digital media. Taking apart the formal parameters of essay and installation, they highlight structural impasses inherent in multimedia hybridity. Often performing as fictional, anachronous personae, they employ the elasticity of theatricality in moments of tenuous changeover. Their ongoing work analyzes of madness and mimesis in queer performance, challenging staid discourses and affective assumptions. Bernstein and Rubin explore the implications of both fashionable and occluded tropes of queer and trans life including dysphoria, suicide, and depersonalization.
Bernstein and Rubin’s work has been presented at MOCA Los Angeles, Issue Project Room, Anthology Film Archives, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Reena Spaulings Fine Arts (Los Angeles), and Pilar Corrias Gallery (London). At the Whitney, they staged and performed Bernstein’s libretto Bieber Bathos Elegy in 2016 and Mayo Thompson’s Victorine (with Art & Language) for the 2012 Whitney Biennial. They are represented by David Lewis Gallery (New York City).
Books
Essays