What art explores domesticity?

May 11, 2023 7:32 AM

I am interested in learning more about contemporary artists who have explored the topic of the domestic sphere, the home, and childrearing, having been pondering the famous 1970s art installation Womanhouse. Have any artists considered these issues in more recent decades? Work that touches on some element of gender would be especially interesting to me. What suggestions do you have for this??
posted by mortaddams to Media & Arts (21 answers total)

artist residency in motherhood
posted by stray at 7:52 AM on May 11, 2023

Best answer: Mierle Laderman Ukeles is the first person who comes to mind for me. She reframed domestic life and “maintenance” as art. She was famously artist in residence at New York Department of Sanitation. She was also working in the 70s.

There’s got to be lots more but I don’t have references at the top of my head - if I get a chance to have a look at my notes/books I’ll come back with more.
posted by colourlesssleep at 8:02 AM on May 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Loie Hollowell, Jordan Casteel, Mickalene Thomas, Catherine Opie.

Not all of the work is centered on domestic subjects per se, but they are all engaging with the idea of family and belonging in ways that are pretty deep.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:30 AM on May 11, 2023

Best answer: Klaire Lockheart's artwork is specifically this.
posted by vegartanipla at 9:43 AM on May 11, 2023

Best answer: You might be interested in The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem by Julie Phillips
posted by Jeanne at 9:57 AM on May 11, 2023

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party
posted by theora55 at 10:10 AM on May 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Playing it for larfs, Sally Swain's Great Housewives of Art (1988) includes:
Mrs. Toulouse-Lautrec cleans the toilet
Mrs. Gauguin has a tupperware party
Mrs. Degas vacuums the floor
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:17 AM on May 11, 2023

Best answer: Mary Pratt was a Canadian artist whose photo-realistic paintings reflected her domestic life as she raised four children in rural Newfoundland. Her images of jars of jelly in the sun and fish laying on tin foil are captivating. She passed away in 2018.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 11:44 AM on May 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Carrie Mae Weems - The Kitchen Table Series
posted by clockwork at 12:21 PM on May 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Suzanne Heintz and her fake mannequin family photos really fit the bill
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:06 PM on May 11, 2023

Omg those jelly jars! I saw them at the national art gallery in Ottawa. Like they stopped me in my tracks. Jelly jars!
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:09 PM on May 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975)

1975, 6:09 min, b&w, sound

Semiotics of the Kitchen adopts the form of a parodic cooking demonstration in which, Rosler states, "An anti-Julia Child replaces the domesticated 'meaning' of tools with a lexicon of rage and frustration." In this performance-based work, a static camera is focused on a woman in a kitchen. On a counter before her are a variety of utensils, each of which she picks up, names and proceeds to demonstrate, but with gestures that depart from the normal uses of the tool. In an ironic grammatology of sound and gesture, the woman and her implements enter and transgress the familiar system of everyday kitchen meanings — the securely understood signs of domestic industry and food production erupt into anger and violence. In this alphabet of kitchen implements, states Rosler, "when the woman speaks, she names her own oppression."

posted by Ahmad Khani at 1:14 PM on May 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Liza Lou, Kitchen, 1991–1996
posted by cardamom at 3:06 PM on May 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: In more recent decades.
Last year.
posted by lesser whistling duck at 4:04 PM on May 11, 2023

I just saw an exhibit by Katherine Bradford - her later work deals with honoring domestic life that she didn’t depict earlier in her career. (Instagram link.)
posted by matildaben at 4:28 PM on May 11, 2023

Gerhard Munthe (1849 - 1929) lived earlier than your requirements. He was an early Modernist painter and illustrator from Norway. His work covered a range of genres. I mention him because he painted a number of sun-drenched interiors of his house. His work became popular within his lifetime because he published several books of paintings using the inexpensive, newfangled four-colour process.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:25 PM on May 11, 2023

Julie Blackmon, Amy Bennett, Ann Toebbe
posted by coevals at 7:32 PM on May 11, 2023

Annamarie Tendler
posted by wowenthusiast at 9:37 PM on May 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Louise Bourgeois in general, and her Femme Maison in particular?
posted by Literaryhero at 7:03 AM on May 12, 2023

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles might be exactly what you’re looking for.
posted by panama joe at 8:34 AM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Was coming in to post about Liza Lou's Kitchen, so seconding that.
posted by snaw at 5:40 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]