Marianne Bernstein is an artist and curator in Chicago who lived and worked in Philadelphia from 2000-2017. In the 1990s in New Haven, CT, she founded untitled(space), The Lot, and co-founded Citywide Open Studios, which incorporated “alternative (empty) spaces” as a call to widen art practices outside of the traditional studio setting. Her photographs have been exhibited nationally and her film, From Philadelphia to the Front (2005) which she co-directed and produced with her good friend Judy Gelles, traveled to 15 festivals worldwide. Tatted, her monograph of photographs of Philadelphia’s renowned tattoo culture, was published in 2009.

Known for curatorial projects that are often meant to be social catalysts, in Fall 2009, she conceived and produced The Welcome House in Love Park in a 10’ transparent cube (an artist residency by day and video installation at night) and Shelter at the Painted Bride (which paired 18 artists with families on the verge of homelessness). In 2010, she conceived and curated The Philadelphia Underground, a site-specific video installation featuring six Philadelphia filmmakers (produced inside the neglected subway concourse underneath Broad Street and City Hall). In 2011, The Play House, a nomadic version of The Welcome House, premiered in an installation on Broad Street titled “Not a Vacant Lot”. It traveled in 2012 to Artspace for an installation and exhibition entitled “Beyond What Was”. The Play House exhibition in New Haven was funded by an ArtWorks grant from the NEA.

In 2011, Bernstein was a finalist for the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She completed two residencies in Iceland at Dionysia in the Westfjords and Nes in a small fishing village. Work from these residencies were included in the exhibition Due North, which brought together 15 American artists and 15 Icelandic artists. She was awarded a 2013 Fellowship by the Independence Foundation in the Arts for this work.

Due South, a project and exchange based in Sicily which exhibited in 2017 at The Delaware Contemporary in their three main galleries, was her second curatorial project in a quartet: Due North, Due South, Due East, and Due West. Due East is currently in the works.

Currently, she is an artist in residence at the Chicago Art Department.