Martha Rosler

Although Martha Rosler suggests that “all artists want to change the world,” her oeuvre is distinguished for its exceptional commitment to this elusive goal, particularly with regard to feminism. As a native of Brooklyn, New York, much of Rosler’s work—which includes video, installation, photo-collage and performance—engages urban space. Rosler is perhaps most well known for her works exploring feminist issues. Her short video Semiotics of the Kitchen (1974/75) parodies and critiques the traditional role of women in society. In the film, Rosler performs as an “anti-Julia Child” character, a begrudging housewife working through a lexicon of kitchen appliances with visible rage and frustration. In response to the Iraq War, Rosler has reprised her photo-collage series Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, which she first began during the Vietnam War. The series combines images of 1970s home interiors superimposed with photographs from the American wars. The intersection of these images comments on the ubiquity of war, and the subsequent desensitization to violence that it begets. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of home and war refers to the militant spirit of the mid-century feminist movement and the continuation of the home as a battlefield against female oppression. In addition to a retrospective exhibition of her work, which has toured throughout Europe and the United States, Rosler’s work has been shown at dOCUMENTAs 7 in 1982 and 12 in 2007, several Whitney Biennials, the Museum of Modern Art and the Dia Center for the Arts in New York. With over a dozen published books and essays, Rosler brings a strong academic background to her teaching position at Rutgers University and her post as an advisor to the education department of the Whitney Museum. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guggenheim Museum in 2010.

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY