Martha Rosler
Encyclopedia
Martha Rosler is an American artist. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, where she now lives. She graduated from Brooklyn College
(1965) and the University of California, San Diego
(1974). Rosler works in video
, photo-text, installation
, and performance
, as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler’s work is centered on everyday life and the public sphere, often with an eye to women's experience. Recurrent concerns are the media and war, as well as architecture and the built environment, from housing and homelessness to systems of transport.
Her work and writing have been widely influential. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally and has taught art at Rutgers University
, where she was a professor for thirty years, and at the Städelschule
in Frankfurt, Germany.
She serves in an advisory capacity to the departments of education at the Whitney Museum of American Art
and the Museum of Modern Art
and the Center for Urban Pedagogy (all New York City). She is on the board of the Van Alen Institute, in New York City, and is a former board member of the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture
at Columbia University
, New York.
Rosler's son is the alternative cartoonist Josh Neufeld
; they have collaborated on a number of projects.
(1974/75), Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained (1977), Losing: A Conversation with the Parents (1977), and, with Paper Tiger Television
, Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1982) and Born to Be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads the Strange Case of Baby S/M
(1988).
Her photo/text work The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems (1974/75) is considered a seminal work in conceptual and postmodern photographic practice.
Also widely noted are her series of photomontages, Body Beautiful, or Beauty Knows No Pain (1966–72), addressing the photographic representation of women and domesticity, and Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, addressing the imagery of the Vietnam War
(1967–72; reprised in relation to the War in Iraq in 2004 and 2008).
Many of these works are concerned with the geopolitics of entitlements and dispossession. Her writing and photographic series on roads, the system of air transport, and urban undergrounds (subways or metros) join her other works addressing urban planning and architecture, from housing to homelessness.
and the New Museum of Contemporary Art
(both in New York). She has recently been the subject of an extensive retrospective exhibition at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM), in Turin. In 2006 her work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the University of Rennes and in 2007 at the Worcester Museum of Art. Her work has been seen in the Venice Biennale
of 2003; the Liverpool Biennial
, the Taipei Biennial (both 2004), and the Singapore Biennale (2011); as well as many major international survey shows, including the "documenta
" exhibitions in Kassel
, Germany, of 1982 and 2007, the SkulpturProjekte Münster 2007, and several Whitney Biennial
s.
In 1989, in lieu of a solo exhibition at the Dia Art Foundation
in New York City, Rosler organized the project "If You Lived Here...", in which over 50 artists, film- and video producers, photographers, architects, planners, homeless people, squatters, activist groups, and schoolchildren addressed contested living situations, architecture, planning, and utopian visions. In 2009, an archive exhibition based on this project, "If You Lived Here Still," opened at e-flux's gallery in New York and then traveled (2010) to Casco Office for Art Design and Theory, in Utrecht, Netherlands, and to La Virreina Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona.
At the Utopia Station show at the Venice Biennale of 2003, she worked with about 30 of her students from Stockholm and Copenhagen, as well as a small, far-flung internet group, 'the Fleas', to produce banners and a mini-pavilion exploring utopian schemes and communities and their political and social ramifications. She has done two tours of historical sites, one in Hamburg (1993) and one in Liverpool (2004), in conjunction with curated art projects. At the Frieze Art Fair (London) of 2005, she conducted a tour of this temporary site from its siting and construction to all aspects of its customer service, maintenance, and security.
Her solo show, “London Garage Sale,” was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
in London in June 2005, revisiting a series of exhibitions she has held since 1973 that center on the American garage sale.
E-flux sponsored "The Martha Rosler Library," in which, starting in November 2005, over 7,500 volumes from her private collection were made available as a public resource in venues in and around art institutions, schools, and libraries. The collection started at e-flux's New York gallery and then traveled to the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany; to Antwerp's MuHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in conjunction with NICC, an artist-run space; to United Nations Plaza School in Berlin; to the Institut National de L'Histoire de L'Art in Paris; to Stills in Edinburgh; and to the Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before being retired. At the "Martha Rosler Library," visitors could sit and read or make free photocopies. Other projects, such as reading groups, were organized locally in conjunction with the project.
, Afterimage, Quaderns, and Grey Room
, and edited collections, among them, Women Artists at the Millennium (October Books/MIT, 2006). She has produced numerous other "word works" and photo/text publications; now exploring cookery in a mock dialogue between Julia Child
and Craig Claiborne
, now analyzing imagery of women in Russia or exploring responses to repression, crisis, and war. Her essay "In, around, and Afterthoughts (on documentary photography)" (1981 but widely cited, republished, and translated) has been credited with a great role in dismantling the myths of photographic disinterestedness and in generating a discussion about the importance of institutional and discursive framing in determining photographic meaning.
Rosler has published sixteen books of photography, art, and writing. Among them are Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Essays 1975-2001 (MIT Press, 2004), the photo books Passionate Signals (Cantz, 2005), In the Place of the Public: Airport Series (Cantz, 1997), and Rights of Passage (NYFA, 1995). If You Lived Here (Free Press, 1991) discusses and supplements her Dia project on housing, homelessness, and urban life. Several books, in English and other languages, were published in 2006, including a 25-year edition of 3 Works (Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design ISBN 0-919616-46-1). The collection Imágenes Públicas, Spanish translations of some essays and video scripts, was published in 2007.
in Hanover and NGBK in Berlin. The book Passionate Signals accompanied this exhibition. In 2006 she received the Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest fine arts award. She received an Anonymous Was A Woman Award for 2007 and was the USA Artists Nimoy Fellow in 2009. She was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Residency for 2009. In 2010 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guggenheim Museum. Rosler was awarded a DAAD Berlin fellowship for 2011.
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
(1965) and the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
(1974). Rosler works in video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, photo-text, installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, and performance
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler’s work is centered on everyday life and the public sphere, often with an eye to women's experience. Recurrent concerns are the media and war, as well as architecture and the built environment, from housing and homelessness to systems of transport.
Her work and writing have been widely influential. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally and has taught art at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, where she was a professor for thirty years, and at the Städelschule
Städelschule
Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a contemporary fine arts academy in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.- History :The Städelschule was established by a foundation set up by the Frankfurt merchant Johann Friedrich Städel in 1817...
in Frankfurt, Germany.
She serves in an advisory capacity to the departments of education at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
and the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
and the Center for Urban Pedagogy (all New York City). She is on the board of the Van Alen Institute, in New York City, and is a former board member of the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, New York.
Rosler's son is the alternative cartoonist Josh Neufeld
Josh Neufeld
Josh Neufeld is an alternative cartoonist known for his nonfiction comics on subjects like Hurricane Katrina, international travel, and finance, as well as his collaborations with writers like Harvey Pekar and Brooke Gladstone...
; they have collaborated on a number of projects.
Art
Among her most widely known works are the pioneering videotapes Semiotics of the KitchenSemiotics of the Kitchen
Semiotics of the Kitchen is a feminist parody video and performance piece released in 1975 by Martha Rosler. The video, which runs six minutes, is considered a critique of the commodified versions of traditional women's roles in modern society....
(1974/75), Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained (1977), Losing: A Conversation with the Parents (1977), and, with Paper Tiger Television
Paper Tiger Television
Paper Tiger Television is an open media collective dedicated to raising media literacy and challenging corporate control over broadcast medium. Based in New York City, Paper Tiger was founded in 1981....
, Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1982) and Born to Be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads the Strange Case of Baby S/M
Baby M
Baby M was the pseudonym used In re Baby M, 537 A.2d 1227, 109 N.J. 396 for the infant named Sara Elizabeth Whitehead at her birth, and later named Melissa Stern by her father and adoptive mother....
(1988).
Her photo/text work The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems (1974/75) is considered a seminal work in conceptual and postmodern photographic practice.
Also widely noted are her series of photomontages, Body Beautiful, or Beauty Knows No Pain (1966–72), addressing the photographic representation of women and domesticity, and Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, addressing the imagery of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
(1967–72; reprised in relation to the War in Iraq in 2004 and 2008).
Many of these works are concerned with the geopolitics of entitlements and dispossession. Her writing and photographic series on roads, the system of air transport, and urban undergrounds (subways or metros) join her other works addressing urban planning and architecture, from housing to homelessness.
Exhibitions
Rosler has had numerous solo exhibitions. A retrospective of her work, “Positions in the Life World” (1998–2000) was shown in five European cities (Birmingham, England; Vienna; Lyon/Villeurbanne; Barcelona; and Rotterdam) and, concurrently, at the International Center of PhotographyInternational Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
and the New Museum of Contemporary Art
New Museum of Contemporary Art
The New Museum, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to presenting contemporary art from around the world...
(both in New York). She has recently been the subject of an extensive retrospective exhibition at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM), in Turin. In 2006 her work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the University of Rennes and in 2007 at the Worcester Museum of Art. Her work has been seen in the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
of 2003; the Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is a British international festival of contemporary art held in Liverpool. The festival comprises the International Exhibition, the John Moores Painting Prize, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition and the Independents Biennial....
, the Taipei Biennial (both 2004), and the Singapore Biennale (2011); as well as many major international survey shows, including the "documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
" exhibitions in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, Germany, of 1982 and 2007, the SkulpturProjekte Münster 2007, and several Whitney Biennial
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...
s.
In 1989, in lieu of a solo exhibition at the Dia Art Foundation
Dia Art Foundation
Dia Art Foundation is a non-profit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 as the Lone Star Foundation by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumberger oil exploration...
in New York City, Rosler organized the project "If You Lived Here...", in which over 50 artists, film- and video producers, photographers, architects, planners, homeless people, squatters, activist groups, and schoolchildren addressed contested living situations, architecture, planning, and utopian visions. In 2009, an archive exhibition based on this project, "If You Lived Here Still," opened at e-flux's gallery in New York and then traveled (2010) to Casco Office for Art Design and Theory, in Utrecht, Netherlands, and to La Virreina Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona.
At the Utopia Station show at the Venice Biennale of 2003, she worked with about 30 of her students from Stockholm and Copenhagen, as well as a small, far-flung internet group, 'the Fleas', to produce banners and a mini-pavilion exploring utopian schemes and communities and their political and social ramifications. She has done two tours of historical sites, one in Hamburg (1993) and one in Liverpool (2004), in conjunction with curated art projects. At the Frieze Art Fair (London) of 2005, she conducted a tour of this temporary site from its siting and construction to all aspects of its customer service, maintenance, and security.
Her solo show, “London Garage Sale,” was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London in June 2005, revisiting a series of exhibitions she has held since 1973 that center on the American garage sale.
E-flux sponsored "The Martha Rosler Library," in which, starting in November 2005, over 7,500 volumes from her private collection were made available as a public resource in venues in and around art institutions, schools, and libraries. The collection started at e-flux's New York gallery and then traveled to the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany; to Antwerp's MuHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in conjunction with NICC, an artist-run space; to United Nations Plaza School in Berlin; to the Institut National de L'Histoire de L'Art in Paris; to Stills in Edinburgh; and to the Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before being retired. At the "Martha Rosler Library," visitors could sit and read or make free photocopies. Other projects, such as reading groups, were organized locally in conjunction with the project.
Published works
Martha Rosler's essays have been published widely in catalogues, magazines, such as ArtforumArtforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
, Afterimage, Quaderns, and Grey Room
Grey Room
Grey Room is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering work in the fields art, media, and politics relating to architecture. The journal features articles, translations, interviews, dossiers and academic exchange. Grey Room is published quarterly, online and in hard copy, by the MIT Press....
, and edited collections, among them, Women Artists at the Millennium (October Books/MIT, 2006). She has produced numerous other "word works" and photo/text publications; now exploring cookery in a mock dialogue between Julia Child
Julia Child
Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...
and Craig Claiborne
Craig Claiborne
Craig Claiborne was an American restaurant critic, food writer and former food editor of the New York Times. He was the author of numerous cookbooks and an autobiography...
, now analyzing imagery of women in Russia or exploring responses to repression, crisis, and war. Her essay "In, around, and Afterthoughts (on documentary photography)" (1981 but widely cited, republished, and translated) has been credited with a great role in dismantling the myths of photographic disinterestedness and in generating a discussion about the importance of institutional and discursive framing in determining photographic meaning.
Rosler has published sixteen books of photography, art, and writing. Among them are Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Essays 1975-2001 (MIT Press, 2004), the photo books Passionate Signals (Cantz, 2005), In the Place of the Public: Airport Series (Cantz, 1997), and Rights of Passage (NYFA, 1995). If You Lived Here (Free Press, 1991) discusses and supplements her Dia project on housing, homelessness, and urban life. Several books, in English and other languages, were published in 2006, including a 25-year edition of 3 Works (Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design ISBN 0-919616-46-1). The collection Imágenes Públicas, Spanish translations of some essays and video scripts, was published in 2007.
Awards
Rosler was awarded the Spectrum International Prize in Photography for 2005. The prize was accompanied by a photo and video retrospective, “If Not Now, When?” at the Sprengel MuseumSprengel Museum
The Sprengel Museum in Hanover houses one of the most significant collections of modern art in Germany. It is located in a building designed by Peter and Ursula Trint and Dieter Quast , adjacent to the Maschsee...
in Hanover and NGBK in Berlin. The book Passionate Signals accompanied this exhibition. In 2006 she received the Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest fine arts award. She received an Anonymous Was A Woman Award for 2007 and was the USA Artists Nimoy Fellow in 2009. She was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Residency for 2009. In 2010 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guggenheim Museum. Rosler was awarded a DAAD Berlin fellowship for 2011.