Bradley Rubenstein

1. Untitled (girl with puppy-dog eyes), 2. Untitled (girl with puppy-dog eyes), 3. Untitled (girl with puppy-dog eyes), 4. Untitled (boy with puppy-dog eyes), 5. Untitled (girl with puppy-dog eyes), 1994-1995

lacquer-based ink on resin-coated paper, 7 x 5 in., each of 5 pieces
Courtesy of Universal Concepts Unlimited

Technology has transformed the nature of human existence. The body is no longer seen as the subject, but as an object to be monitored, modified, mutated. Genetic engineering, biological advances, and technology have made possible the conflation of human/animal and human/machine. Cyberspace is redefining the human as a bundle of information or as a source of image. The biological body exists through the mediation of images or representations and its capacities for movement and action. Hysteria, schizophrenia, transgendering are examples that demonstrate the fluidity of what is usually thought of as the constant, fixed, biological body.

Along with new technologies come new ways of understanding bodies and their relationships to other objects and the world. Among the more crucial issues brought into question by the reconceptualization of body and thought are the binary distinctions between mind and body, subject and object, psychological and biological, gender and sex, and nature and culture. I am primarily interested in specific and generic portraiture, while acknowledging the art historical uses of the portrait for social or political commentary, as in the work of Daumier.

I am also interested in the relationship between art and science, including experiments with xenotransplantation conducted at UCLA around 1995. I have studied the psychological phenomena of infantility patterning, retinal dilation in relation to perceived stimulus, and the historical anthropomorphizing of animals such as Vishnu and Mickey Mouse. In some of my pieces the eyes of the dog are taken from the pet of the child. Boy with Beagle Eyes, for example, is a self-portrait with the eyes of a childhood pet.