Felix Bernstein

Felix Bernstein
Name	Felix Bernstein
Birth date	1992
Birth place	Los Angeles, California, United States
Occupation	Artist, poet, performer, filmmaker, critic
Years active	2010s–present
Notable works	A Bibliography of the Obsessive, Notes on Post-Conceptual Immanence

Felix Bernstein

Felix Bernstein is an American artist, poet, performer, and filmmaker known for experimental writing, multimedia performance, and queer theory–inflected criticism. Bernstein's work intersects contemporary art, avant-garde poetry, experimental film, and digital culture, engaging networks of influence that include institutional venues, independent presses, and online platforms. Their practice has generated collaborations and dialogues with artists, curators, poets, publishers, and theorists across North America and Europe.

Early life and education

Bernstein was born in Los Angeles and raised amid the cultural institutions of Southern California, attending programs associated with UCLA, CalArts, and regional arts organizations. Their early schooling connected them to youth programs sponsored by institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Getty Center, and to community spaces like independent bookstores and small press collectives. Bernstein pursued undergraduate and graduate studies that engaged with literary studies, performance studies, and film theory at universities and conservatories where faculty included poets, critics, and filmmakers affiliated with The New School, Columbia University, and European programs in contemporary art. Bernstein’s formative encounters with readings, exhibitions, and salons in Los Angeles and New York shaped an interdisciplinary approach linking chapel-born liturgies of language with the discourses of institutional critique at venues like the Whitney Museum and college galleries.

Artistic career

Bernstein’s career spans written publication, stage performance, gallery installations, and short films shown at festivals and microcinemas. They have published with independent presses and literary journals associated with experimental poetry and queer studies, distributing chapbooks and full-length collections that circulates through networks such as Fence Books, Ugly Duckling Presse, and university presses. Bernstein’s performance projects have been produced by alternative performance spaces and artist-run organizations including PS122 (Performance Space New York), The Kitchen, and artist collectives in Berlin and London. Film screenings have appeared at programming organized by Ann Arbor Film Festival, Museum of Modern Art (New York), and artist-run cinemas engaging underground and academic audiences.

Major works and themes

Major works include a series of poetic texts and video essays that interrogate identity, language, and media archives, often assembling found materials, close readings, and autobiographical fragments. Bernstein’s texts operate in dialogue with canonical and experimental figures—linking lines to works by Gertrude Stein, John Ashbery, Jack Spicer, Paul Celan, and Adrienne Rich—while also responding to theorists and critics such as Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Roland Barthes. Themes recur around queer subjectivity, familial inheritance, cinematic memory, and the politics of voice; other projects probe the aesthetics of online platforms exemplified by references to Twitter, YouTube, and early weblog cultures as archival sources. Bernstein’s bibliographic and archival projects echo precedents in artists’ books and annotated editions championed by collectives like Printed Matter, Inc. and small-press networks that foreground marginal and experimental literatures.

Style and influences

Stylistically, Bernstein blends collage, procedural writing, and performative recitation, creating hybrid forms that draw from traditions of Dada, Fluxus, and Language poetry. Their work often exhibits dense intertextuality, sourcing from Modernist and postmodern archives including T. S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, Samuel Beckett, and contemporaries engaged in queer poetics. Performance techniques reference the gestural presence of Yves Klein–inflected happenings, the vocal experiments of Suzanne Ciani and avant-garde musicians, and the cinematic framings of independent filmmakers associated with John Cassavetes and Andy Warhol. Bernstein’s theoretical orientation engages continental and Anglo-American thinkers, creating a practice informed by intersections with Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Homi K. Bhabha, and recent scholarship at programs linked to Brown University and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Exhibitions and performances

Bernstein has staged performances and installations at institutional and experimental venues, appearing in curated programs at contemporary art spaces, literary festivals, and performance biannuals. Notable appearances include curated evenings at MoMA PS1, collaborative events at Centre Pompidou satellite programs, and readings at major literary festivals such as Poetry Project events and international forums in Berlin and Paris. Film and video works have been screened at festivals and galleries associated with experimental cinema and contemporary art, including Rotterdam International Film Festival sidebar programs, artist-run venues like Anthology Film Archives, and biennials focusing on multimedia practice. Collaborative performances have involved dancers, musicians, and visual artists with links to institutions like Lincoln Center and university theater programs.

Awards and recognition

Bernstein’s work has been noted in critical reviews, contemporary art surveys, and experimental literature roundups, receiving fellowships and grants from arts councils and foundations that fund emerging artists in poetry and new media. Their projects have been supported by residency programs and institutions such as MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and arts councils at municipal and national levels. Recognition includes shortlistings and mentions in biennial catalogs, curated anthologies of contemporary poetics, and awards distributed by independent presses and literary organizations, situating Bernstein within a cohort of contemporary practitioners acknowledged by critics at outlets associated with Artforum, The Paris Review, and experimental poetry forums.

Personal life and activism

Bernstein’s personal life and public engagements reflect commitments to queer community work, activist networks, and arts organizing. They have participated in benefit readings, fundraisers, and coalition projects allied with LGBTQ+ centers, mutual aid groups, and collectives addressing cultural access in urban contexts such as initiatives tied to Lambda Literary, GLAAD, and local queer arts councils. Bernstein’s organizing and public interventions intersect with campus dialogues, community arts education programs, and solidarities formed with labor and housing advocacy groups that operate in major cities including Los Angeles, New York City, and European capitals where they maintain professional ties.

Category:American poets Category:American performance artists Category:Queer artists Category:1992 births