Artists and "home" in DC

I went to two DC art exhibits last week at two different museums. Both exhibits were about "home." I wondered if the two museums had this planned . . . if they wanted visitors to look at both exhibits and consider how different artists approach this topic. Because that's what I did.

The first exhibit I went to was at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It was called "Women House" and was advertised with this whimsical, thought-provoking image, one of the artworks at the exhibit.

Walking House by Laurie Simmons, 1989

OK, is that artwork just whimsical? It's a funny "American" house with cute legs . . . or is it something more? Maybe what you see is that nothing is left of this woman but her home and her legs: she's been consumed by her home.

That tension between whimsy and creepy was just one tension that ran throughout the wonderful exhibit.

If you're a feminist of a certain age (like, oh, say 56), you might have been brought up as a feminist to resist the stereotypical idea that women should derive ultimate satisfaction by "keeping house." Many of the artworks in this exhibit expressed anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction with domesticity, seeing it as a kind of prison.

There was a video artwork of a woman trapped in a cage, pacing around. The viewer was left to wonder: did the cages represent "the woman's sphere," home? Or did the cage represent cultural expectations for women in general?  Another art video showed someone using a sledge hammer to break down a wall (of a home?) which was mesmerizing and thought-provoking. I didn't get photos to share here (they were videos so a photo wouldn't do them justice anyway!) but I enjoyed seeing their fighting spirit and anger channeled into art.

Still, the artworks I liked best at this exhibit were the ones that used domestic craft to say something new. Why destroy "home" and "domesticity" entirely when you can use them to your own purpose? As a person who enjoys "domestic" arts (making things with yarn, sewing, gardening), this approach appeals more to me.

The exhibit, Women House, was inspired by an earlier exhibit, Womanhouse, developed by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro in the 1970s. So of course, there were some Judy Chicago plates!

I loved the way Chicago takes a traditionally "domestic" and "feminine" art (or craft)--painting on china, which my grandmother did!--and makes a new, radical, feminist statement with it. Like with these plates that combine images of female genitalia with (transforming!) butterflies. Oh, plus this artwork also included a short essay written on the plates. Art + writing = 💗

Other artists did similar things to take what used to be "feminine" and make it "feminist."

Mona Hatoum laid out a number of shiny new kitchen implements on a table . . . and connected them with buzzing electrical wires!

 

Yikes: the kitchen becomes a place of power and danger! Yet the artwork was also beautiful, with lights underneath the colander, grater, and sieve occasionally shining out.

These soft and adorable Tiny Houses made of felt, each about six inches high, by Laurie Tixier appealed to my love of tiny things and my interest in textiles.

The artist says they are inspired by "fictional architecture built by children: blanket houses."  I love how she's making art that reaches back to childhood and evokes warmth, making something that's at once feminine (textile) and masculine (a building).

Another textile-oriented artwork was "Environment/Dining Room" by Ana Viera (from 1971). It was a room constructed of translucent hanging fabric panels.

At once both gauzy and closed off (you couldn't get into the room, and you couldn't even quite see what was in there!), it also had a sound track of dishes gently clinking and a conversation. We're kept out of this home, though we can look in.

I found another gauzy home when I walked a few blocks to the Smithsonian American Art Museum; I wondered if the artist who made this one had seen Viera's.

This gauzy home was different, though. Most importantly, you could walk through it.

I love this kind of art--installations that allow viewers to step into the world of the artwork. I walked through the piece with my mouth open--so amazing! How did he make the door knobs out of gauze fabric? And look at how ghostly the door is.

The exhibit was called "Almost Home," created by Do Ho Suh, who was born in Korea, but lived in many places throughout the world. The installation consisted of gauze versions of three different rooms: a room from his home in Korea, a room from his home in Berlin, and a room from his home in New York.

The curation explained that he was exploring "how culture, tradition, migration, and displacement intersect as we construct our ideas of selfhood and origin." He mentioned that he could pack this home up in a suitcase, but I wondered if he actually did that . . .

I wanted to stay inside the gauzy home, but people were waiting in line behind me. So I left them have a turn and looked at some of the other artwork by the artist around the room. One piece made of "embedded thread" sketches on canvas caught my eye. There was the house with legs again! This time, they were more androgynous and somehow less creepy.

Thank you, artists who use "home" as a topic for your thought-provoking art!