Fuck You: from the Liz Taylor Series (after Bert Stern)

Kathe Burkhart is an artist and writer who uses images and text to, in her words, “articulate a radical female subject.” She considers this confrontational, sensual work to be the first fully realized canvas in her Liz Taylor Series, ongoing since 1982. The series of large-scale, richly saturated paintings combines appropriated portraits of actress Elizabeth Taylor (here, a shot of her as Cleopatra, taken by Bert Stern for Vogue magazine in 1962) with profane language, shattering both female stereotypes and conventions of representation. Taylor was a controversial feminist figure throughout her career, conveying equal parts bravura, sexual power, and vulnerability. Burkhart—collapsing the genres of portraiture and self-portraiture—treated the actress as a surrogate figurefor her own life in the diary-like narrative series.