Folterbett makes evident Freud’s theories of castration anxiety and penis envy, taking the phallic form (here being the worm) and suspending it across a torture bed. The bed, a site of intercourse and intimacy, becomes the site of aggression.

The worm, a stuffed fabric sculpture, plays against the hard, geometric abstraction of male painters of the time. It is interesting to note that famed British artist Sarah Lucas makes similar stuffed fabric appendages, but 15 years on from Bertlmann.