Not-So-Desperate Housewives
By Karen S. Chambers
Ricky Bernstein’s work immediately evokes a smile or a chuckle, but he’s as much an anthropologist or a social commentator with a gift for humor as a comedian. Inspired by the work of artists like Reginald Marsh, Jack Levine and Red Grooms, there is never anything mean-spirited in Bernstein’s depictions of “Everyman” and increasingly “Everywoman” coping, successfully or not, with everyday life. Bernstein cuts to the chase, just like Gary Larson - another of his heroes - does in his “Far Side” cartoons.
In his latest body of work “Kitchen Dreams,” Bernstein looks back to what he sees as a simpler time - the 1950s when he grew up. He is nostalgic about what he recalls as a slower, more wholesome era, before the sensory overload of MTV’s jump cuts or the invention of the miniaturized juke box filled with your own personal play list - the iPod - isolated you from your surroundings. It’s a time before the tyranny of cell phones, and blackberries were still just fruit. Computers didn’t rule and kids mostly played outside.
A child of the ’50s, Bernstein is also part of the first television generation and readily admits its influence. Instead of nearly X-rated music videos, he watched Saturday morning cartoons, following the improbable adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Abbott and Costello and The Three Stooges helped to shape his sense of humor. Leave It to Beaver and The Dick Van Dyke Show depicted how family life was supposed to be: Ward and Rob went off to work while June and Laura kept house.
In focusing on this part of his life, it seems natural that Ricky’s mother should come to the fore. In Bernstein’s earlier work, it was the average Joe who held center stage dealing with the challenges of daily life earning a living. But, Ricky never identified his father Bob as the model for this “Everyman” character. As an “anthropologist,” Bernstein has studied the housewife of the ’50s through his renditions of Gladys, and her friends Beverly and Lois. While Bernstein’s work has always been personal, it has become increasingly autobiographical.
In earlier works Bernstein acknowledged the heroic task of homemaking by showing how it overwhelmed the stronger sex, as in Living in a Vacuum, where “Everyman” is terrorized by a hurricane-force Electrolux, or Zippity Do-Dah, where Bernstein’s “Everyman” tries to handle all the tasks routinely performed by the not-yet desperate housewives of the 1950s.
In You Gottah Be Kidding, it’s easy to see this quartet of beach goers as Beverly, Lois and Gladys, with Bob, giving the less-than-flattering commentary. Here the three ‘gals’ let it all hang out in their bathing suits and one even bares all in a skimpy bikini. The knobby-kneed male in Bermuda shorts, dark socks and shoes, decries their choice of attire, unaware of his own sartorial miscalculations.
Despite Bernstein’s critique of this celebration of cellulite, he also offers a sympathetic view. Instead of ridiculing, Bernstein gently pokes fun and maybe even applauds these four who are blissfully unaware of the existence of the fashion police of high-fashion rags and TV’s What Not to Wear.
In So…What’ll It Be Pal, Crystal, an imposing diner waitress, is a stand-in for the multi-tasking wife and mother. She juggles checks for customers, a couple of plates, and a pot of hot coffee, all with aplomb - a word that would never pass her lips. Still amidst the chaos she’s more in control than most - if not all of Bernstein’s working stiffs.
Fifi is definitely in control. A feather duster is the catalyst for the fantasy of being a fan dancer, as she turns her suburban living room into a theater where she’s the headliner. As Lois busily dusts and cleans, sadly, her act is a solo performance.
In Double Coupons, Gladys is surrounded by the tools of her trade - a broom and a vacuum, an iron and a toaster. But there are also the two coffee cups and a couple of muffins--mementi mori of a neighbor’s visit. She balances a freshly baked pie and Bob’s “favorite casserole” while proudly declaring that she has double coupons on dish soap - the deal of the week.”
This satirical look at the mundane triumphs of Gladys’s life is also a comment on the limits placed on women at the time. The only glass ceilings they encountered were skylights to be attacked with a bottle of Windex.
In Beverly, Lois & Gladys, Bernstein records a late afternoon koffee klatch in a chaotic kitchen. Gladys, still in rollers, reviews new shoes bagged by her friends Beverly and Lois, who are fresh from the hunt and resplendent in their pearls and stylish turquoise and purple leopard pants. The shoes are the spoils offered for validation. It’s a vastly different time than when Sex and the City’s Carrie compulsively stockpiled Manolo’s in her rent-stabilized apartment. Beverly and Lois probably found the pumps on sale and paid for them out of their household allowances.
Bernstein encourages this type of extending the narrative. Although gifted as a writer, Bernstein is reluctant to attach extensive text to his wall reliefs. Though, he does use dialogue bubbles or adds label-like elements to jump-start the viewer’s musings.
Today there are desperate housewives living on Wisteria Lane, but Bernstein’s housewives still have the innocence of the ’50s. In Voilà, 2005, Beverly and Gladys drink another cup of coffee, smoke another cigarette, and clean up another breakfast but, this time by gleefully tossing the dishes in the trash. Is it a proto-feminist statement?
As always, Ricky does a comedic turn in this body of work, but never at the expense of his subjects. He satirizes the simpler, more wholesome ’50s with the gentleness that characterizes all of his work. Social commentary or anthropological study, Ricky Bernstein’s art has been made richer by his personal revelations and, as always, his keen eye for what really is important in life.
Karen S. Chambers is a freelance writer,
art critic and frequent guest curator of
the Fuller Art Museum. |
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