Existing comment:
Judith Bernstein
born Newark, NJ
1942
F---ed by Number
1966
charcoal and mixed media on paper
Collection of Danniel Rangel
F---ed by Number highlights the approximate number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam at the time that Bernstein made this drawing. The phallic, draw-by-number imagery suggests that the public "connect the dots" between the escalation of the war and American leaders' apparent need to project toughness and masculinity. In Vietnam Garden, Bernstein again presents the conflation of masculine and national power as dangerous, even fatal -- depicting flag-adorned, erect phalluses as military tombstones |