My artwork, both painting and artist’s books, examines and questions gender roles and the portrayal of women in popular culture. I also believe strongly in the role of the imagination and the importance of poetry, humor, irony, memory, and fantasy in art.

My large paintings from 2005 to 2007 such as “The Flood,” “Diving into the Wreck,” and “Eye of the Storm” explore an expressionistic, apocalyptic vision in the form of imaginary seascapes filled with people, animals, and boats. Here I was thinking of the aftermath of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, September 11 (I was an eyewitness), and the Asian Tsunami.

I am interested in integrating collage and oil painting, so that some of the figures are painted and others are collaged into the paintings. I want to maximize the expressivity and color potential of the oil paint in each composition. Other recent paintings such as “The Island” and “How Deep is the Ocean” reflect a quieter and more meditative approach to similar themes.

epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bee/
M/E/A/N/I/N/G: writing.upenn.edu/pepc/meaning/04/
bernstei@bway.net


EDUCATION
Hunter College, M.A., Art, 1977
Barnard College, B.A., Art History and Art, 1973

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Solo Shows

Eye of the Storm: New Paintings, A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2009
Seeing Double: Paintings by Susan Bee and Miriam Laufer, A.I.R. Gallery, NY,
2006 (catalogue with essay by Johanna Drucker)
Sign Under Test: Paintings and Artist’s Books, Pacific Switchboard Art Space,
Portland, Oregon, 2004
Miss Dynamite: New Paintings, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, 2003
Miss Dynamite and Other Tales, Olin Art Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, 2002
Ice Cream Sunday: Paintings and Works on Paper, Ben Shahn Galleries at William
Paterson University of New Jersey, 2001 (catalogue with essay by David Shapiro)
New Work, Rare Books and Manuscript Library, School of International Affairs,
Columbia University, New York, 2000
Beware the Lady: New Paintings and Works on Paper, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, 2000
(catalogue with essay by John Yau)
Touchdown, Recent Paintings, Cornershop Gallery, Buffalo, 1999
Post-Americana: New Paintings, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, 1998
Recent Paintings and a New Artist's Book, Granary Books Gallery, New York, 1997
New Paintings, Virginia Lust Gallery, New York, 1992
Altered Photo Images, Jack Morris Gallery, New York, 1979
Solo Show, Office of the Graduate School, Columbia University, New York, 1972

Selected Group Shows
One True Thing, A.I.R. Gallery, NY; Putney School, VT, 2007
Pink Kid Gloves, Chashama Gallery, NY, 2006
Complicit! Contemporary American Art and Mass Culture, University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA, 2006
Conceptual Comics, Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada, 2006
Generations, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 1997, 2002, 2004, 2006
Too Much Bliss: Twenty Years of Granary Books, Smith College Museum, MA, 2005-06
I.D.:id; Wish You Were Here IV, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 2005
Upstarts and Matriarchs: Jewish Women Artists and the Transformation of American Art,
Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, Denver, CO, 2005
Pieces 6, Gallery 128, NY, 2005
Women of the Book: Jewish Artists, Jewish Themes, Traveling Show, 1997-2005
Articles & Waves, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA, 2004
Summer Group Show, Margaret Porter Troupe Literary & Visual Arts Salon, NY, 2004
Mixed Company: Women Choose Men (with Richard Tuttle), A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 2004
Corporal Identity—Body Language, Triennial 9 for Form and Content, USA and
Germany, Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Museum of Arts and Design, NY, 2003-2004
Revolt She Said, MLF (Mouvement de la Liberation des Femmes), Forde Espace d’art
contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004
Sketches, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 2004
Retrospectives, Gallery 312, Chicago, IL, 2003
Love and/or Terror, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, 2003
Wish You Were Here Too; New Moves, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 2003
Publishing Granary's Books: A Conversation in the Margins, University of California,
San Diego, Mandeville Special Collections Library, 2003
Pieces 5, Gallery 128, NY, 2002
Talking to Myself: Culture, Fantasy, and the Domestic Condition, Porter Troupe Gallery,
San Diego, CA, 2001
Poetry Plastique, Marianne Boesky Gallery, NY, 2001
Art for Plot, The Kitchen, NY, 2001
Tributaries, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 2001
Celebrating Yaddo Artists, Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY, 2000
Off the Shelf: Contemporary Artists' Books, Mass Moca, 2000
Souvenirs/Documents: 20 Years, P.S. 122 Gallery, NY, 1999
The Next Word, Text and/as Image and/as Design and/as Meaning,
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, 1998-1999
Winter Group Show, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 1999
The Art of the Book, Sterling Library, Yale University, CT, 1998
A Secret Location on the Lower East Side, The New York Public Library, 1998
A Tribute to Tibet, A.I.R. Gallery, NY, 1998
A World View, World Artists for Tibet, The Times Square Lobby Gallery, NYC, 1998
A.I.R. Gallery Group Show, Canessa Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1998
A.I.R. 25th Anniversary Show, Kingsborough College Gallery, NY, 1998
Girls!Girls!Girls!, Tricia Collins, Grand Salon, New York, 1997
Field Days, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA, 1996
My Friends in My Apartment, Barbara Pollack's apt., New York, 1996
Voices from the Heart, HarperCollins Exhibition Space, New York, 1996
Open Book, Barnard College Gallery, New York, 1993, 1994, 1996
A Child’s World, Dru Arstark Gallery, New York, 1995
Three Artists, Granary Books Gallery, New York, 1995
Symbolic Surface, Klarfeld Perry Gallery, New York, 1994
Art & Language, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, 1994
Songs of Retribution, Richard Anderson Gallery, New York, 1993
The Beauty in Breathing, Ruth & Marvin Sackner Archive, American
Lung Association, Miami Beach, 1992
Ecstasy Shop, Dooley Le Cappellaine Gallery, New York, 1992
Fire and Ice, Hallwalls, Buffalo, 1991
Burning in Hell, Franklin Furnace, New York, 1991
Individual Style, Virginia Lust Gallery, New York, 1990
China: June 4, P.S. 1 Museum, New York, 1990
Sex and Subtext, Ceres Gallery, New York, 1990
Fresh from New York, Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, 1989;
Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand, 1988
In Pieces: The Figure Fragmented, P.S. 122, New York, 1987
PoArtics, BACA Downtown, New York, 1987
Heresies: Issues that won't go away, PPOW, New York, 1987
Out of the Ooo Cloud, Blum Art Institute, Bard College, 1986
State of Mind/State of Union, Interart Center, New York, 1985
Woman Artists of the 80s: New Talent, A.I.R., New York, 1984
Dreams and Nightmares, Interart Center Gallery, New York, 1984
Re(Birth), Moonmade Space, New York, 1984
Artists Call, Work, New York, 1984
Bodies & Souls, Artists' Choice Museum at David Findlay Jr. Gallery, NY, 1983
Holiday Invitational, A.I.R. New York, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985
Project Installation, P.S. 1, New York, 1982
Escapes, Art Latitude Gallery, New York, 1981
Photo-Fusion, Pratt Institute Gallery, New York, 1981
Wordworks, P.S. 122, New York, 1980
New Work from New York, Mercato del Sale Gallery, Milan, 1979
Destination Paris, Lara Vincy Gallery, Paris, 1979
Posters, Books, and Postcards, Women's Building, Los Angeles, 1978
Artwords and Bookworks, Los Angeles Institute of Art, 1977
Hunter College Graduate Show, Hunter College Gallery, NY, 1976
Women Artists, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1974
Three Artists, Earl Hall Gallery, Columbia University, NY, 1972


PUBLICATIONS

Edited Publications
Coeditor: M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online: #1, 2002; #2, 2003; #3, 2006; #4, 2007
Coeditor: M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism,
Duke University Press, 2000
Coeditor: M/E/A/N/I/N/G, 1986 - 1996, New York
Coeditor, Ripple Effects: Painting and Language, New Observations, #113, 1996, NY


Reviews and Criticism, including Catalogs and Books
Blast Art Benefit Catalogue, NY, 1992, 1993
Cere-ious Collaborations, Review of Bed Hangings, Publisher's Weekly, May 14, 2001
Clay, Steven, When Will the Book Be Done? Granary's Books, Granary Books, 2001
Clay, Steven and R. Phillips, A Secret Location on the Lower East Side, The New York
Public Library and Granary Books, 1998
Cohen, Joshua, “For This Mother and Daughter, The Family Business Is Culture,”
Forward, Feb. 17, 2006
Coleman, A.D., Photo-Fusion, Pratt Institute Gallery, NY, 1981
Corporal Identity—Body Language, Triennial 9 for Form and Content, USA and Germany, Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Museum of Arts and Design, NY, 2003
Cotter, Holland, "Poetry Plastique," The New York Times, Feb. 23, 2001
Cotter, Holland,"When Word's Meaning Is In Their Look," The New York Times,
Oct. 16, 1998
Curnow, Wystan, Fresh from New York, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand, 1988
Curtis, Lisa, "Books of Love,"The Insider, 1996
Drucker, Johanna, "Susan Bee: Post-Americana," Art Papers 47, July-August 1998
Drucker, Johanna, The Next Word, Text and/as Image and/as Design and/as Meaning,
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, 1998
Drucker, Johanna,"Susan Bee: Arcane Painting," Sulfur, No. 28, 1991
Drucker, Johanna, The Century of Artists’ Books, Granary Books, 1995
Drucker, Johanna, Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity, Univ. of Chicago,
2005
Elliot, Joe, “Back to Basics: 3 Primers from Granary Books,” JAB, 3, Spring, 1995
Feliciano, Kristina, Making Memory Books By Hand, Quarry, Gloucester, MA, 1999
Fischbach, Chris, "Granary Books," Rain Taxi, Vol. 4, No. 3, Fall 1999
Frueh, Joanna,"Art Press on M/E/A/N/I/N/G," New Art Examiner, March 1990
Goldsmith, Kenneth, "Are You Experienced,” Sulfur, No. 41, 1997
Gomez, Edward M., Power and Glory in Sisterhood, New York Times, Oct. 13, 2002
Goodman, Jonathan, “Susan Bee at A.I.R.,” Art in America, October 1998
Goodman, Jonathan, "Susan Bee and Miriam Laufer at A.I.R.," December 2006
Hoffberg, Judith, Women of the Book: Jewish Artists, Jewish Themes, Florida Atlantic
University, 2001
Huntington, Richard, "Buffalo editor strives for new meaning in art
criticism," Buffalo News, Sunday, March 3, 1991
Jullich, Jeffrey, "Bed Hangings," Electronic Poetry Review, #2, 2001
Levin, Gail and Elissa Auther, Upstarts and Matriarchs: Jewish Women Artists and the Transformation of American Art, Mizel Center, Denver, CO, 2005
Licata, Elizabeth, "Gestural Rhythms and Curious Cut-Outs: Bee's Beat Feminism at
Cornershop,"Artvoice, Buffalo, NY, April 29-May 5, 1999
Margolis, Judith, The Painted Word: Jewish Women’s Book Art, Nashim: A Journal of
Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, No. 8, Fall 2004
McEvilley, Thomas, "Susan Bee at A.I.R.," Art in America, December 2000
McGann, Jerome, Black Riders: The Visible Language of Modernism,
Princeton University Press, 1993
McGann, Jerome, A Book of the Book, Rothenberg and Clay, eds., Granary Books, 2000
Morgan, Robert C., “Seeing Double,” Brooklyn Rail, March 2006
Morgan, Robert C., After the Deluge: Essays for the Art of the Nineties, Red Bass, 1993
Morgan, Robert C., "After the Deluge: The Return of the Inner Directed Artist,"
Arts Magazine, March 1992
Morgan, Robert C., The End of the Art World, Allsworth Press, 1998
Morgan, Robert C., "Doric Column," Cover, March 1993
Morgan, Robert C., review of Granary Books show, Review, February 1997
Morgan Robert C., Symbolic Surface, Klarfeld Perry Gallery, NY, 1994
Naves, Mario, "Currently Hanging," The New York Observer, April 28, 2003
Novoye Russkoye Slovo, "This is not a Hat," June 4, 1993
“Pink Kid Gloves,” NY Arts Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2007
Perloff, Marjorie, "Bed Hangings," Common Knowledge, Vol. 9, issue 2, Spring 2003
Robins, Corinne, "A Girl's Life," Rain Taxi, Vol. 7, No. 4, Winter 2002/2003
Robins, Corinne, "Collaborations," American Book Review, Jan/Feb 1999
Robins, Corinne, Women Artists of the 80s: New Talent, A.I.R., New York, 1984
Row, D.K., “Constructions of Pulpy, Kitschy Art,” The Oregonian, April 2, 2004
Rumble, Ken, "Bed Hangings," Rain Taxi, Vol. 6, No. 3, Fall 2001
Rubinstein, Raphael, "Poets and Painters," Art in America, February 2002
Sackner, Marvin, The Beauty in Breathing, Ruth Marvin Sackner
Archive, American Lung Association, Miami Beach, 1992
Sanders, Jay and Charles Bernstein, Poetry Plastique, Marianne Boesky Gallery & Granary Books, 2001, New York
Shapiro, David, Ice Cream Sunday: Paintings and Works on Paper, catalog essay, Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University of New Jersey, 2001
Suvakovic, Misko, “Painting After Painting: An Analysis of Susan Bee’s Paintings,”
ProFemina, Yugoslavia, 1995; M/E/A/N/I/N/G #18, NY, 1995; M/E/A/N/I/N/G:
An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism, Duke University
Press, 2000
Tabios, Eileen, “Susan Bee: New Paintings, Artist's Books,” Review, December 1, 2000
Tabios, Eileen, “Unifying Fragments Through Color,” My Romance, Giraffe, 2001
Tysh, Chris, “A Girl's Life,” Metro Times, Detroit, MI, May 15, 2002
Yau, John, The Passionate Spectator, University of Michigan Press, forthcoming
Yau, John, Bodies & Souls, Artists' Choice Museum, New York, 1983
Yau, John, Beware the Lady: New Paintings and Works on Paper, catalog essay, 2000
Zimmer, William, Art Review, The New York Times, New Jersey edition, Nov. 11, 2001
Zivancevic, Nina, “Susan Bee: New Paintings,” NY Arts, Vol 5, no 5, May 2000


Artist's Books
The Burning Babe and Other Poems, by Jerome Rothenberg, Granary Books, 2005
A Girl's Life, text by Johanna Drucker, Granary Books, 2002
Bed Hangings, poems by Susan Howe, Granary Books, 2001
Log Rhythms, poem by Charles Bernstein, Granary Books, 1998
Little Orphan Anagram, poems by Charles Bernstein, Granary Books, 1997
Talespin, Granary Books, 1995
Liquid Perceptions, 1994
Fool's Gold, poems by Charles Bernstein, Chax Press, 1991
The Nude Formalism, poems by Charles Bernstein, Sun and Moon, 1989
The Occurrence of Tune, poem by Charles Bernstein, Segue, 1981
Not, Asylum's Press, 1980
Photogram, Asylum's Press, 1978

TEACHING
Faculty, School of Visual Arts, MFA in Art Criticism and Writing, 2005-present
Artist-Teacher, Vermont College, MFA in Visual Arts, 2007-present

GRANTS
Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 2002
Yaddo Fellowship, 2001; 1996
Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 1999
Publication Grants, Visual Arts Program, National Endowment for the Arts, 1992-1997
Publication Grants, Visual Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, 1989-1997

COLLECTIONS
Private Collections
Jesse Ausubel, Susan David Bernstein, Lee Anne Brown, Abigail Child, Steve Clay and Julie Harrison, Penelope Creeley, Johanna Drucker, Marty Ehrlich and Erica Hunt, Jon Friedman, Kenneth Goldsmith, Vanalyne Green, Ted Greenwald and Joan McClusky, Mimi Gross, Ann Lauterbach, Hank & Jane Lazer, Angelo Lomeo, Kathryne Lindberg, Herbert & Virginia Lust, Douglas Messerli & Howard Fox, Lyn Oliensis, Bob Perelman and Francie Shaw, Nick Piombino and Toni Simon, Meredith and Peter Quartermain, Carol Randolph, Claudia Rankine, Adrienne Rich, Mira Schor, James Sherry & Deborah Thomas, Ron Silliman, Joan Snitzer, Peter & Susan Straub, Eileen Tabios, Richard Tuttle & Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Geoffrey Young

Public Collections (Artist's Book)
The British Library, Getty Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Yale University, Library of Congress, Clark Art Institute, New York Public Library, Spencer Collection, Princeton University Library, Dartmouth College Art Library, University of California, San Diego Special Collections, Harvard University Library, Sackner Collection of Concrete Poetry and Artist's Books, Museum of Arts and Design, NY, Stanford University, Ohio State University Library, Smith College Library, Boston Athenaeum, University of Georgia Library, University of Pennsylvania Library, University of Delaware Library, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, University of Alberta, University of California, Santa Barbara, SUNY Buffalo, Wesleyan College Library, The Athenaeum, La Jolla, Brown University Library

GALLERY REPRESENTATION
A.I.R. Gallery, New York
Artist's Books, Granary Books, New York
Drawings, Pierogi Flat Files, Brooklyn, NY