Martha Rosler facts for kids

Martha Rosler (born 1943) is an American artist. She creates conceptual art, which means her art often explores ideas more than just making pretty objects. She uses many different ways to make art, like photography, video art, installation art (art set up in a space), and performance art (art acted out). She also writes a lot about art and culture.

Rosler's art often looks at everyday life, especially the experiences of women. She also focuses on how the media works, the effects of war, and how cities and buildings are designed. This includes topics like housing, homelessness, and transportation.

Early Life and Education

Martha Rosler was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. She spent many important years in California from 1968 to 1980. She lived in San Diego and San Francisco during this time. She also lived and taught in Canada for a while.

She went to Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. Later, she studied at Brooklyn College (graduating in 1965) and the University of California, San Diego (graduating in 1974). Since 1981, she has lived in New York City.

Martha Rosler's Career in Art

Martha Rosler's art and writing have had a big impact on many people. She often uses photomontage (combining photos) and photo-text (photos with words). She also works with video, sculpture, and art installations.

Rosler has given many talks about her work around the world. She taught photography and media at Rutgers University for 30 years. She also taught at the Städelschule in Germany and was a visiting professor at other universities.

Her art has been shown in many important museums and galleries. These include the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford. Her work has also been part of big art shows like the Whitney Biennial and Documenta.

Rosler is also known for her writing. She has published over 16 books. These books include her artwork and essays about art, photography, and culture. Her writings have been translated into many languages.

Key Artworks and Ideas

What is Semiotics of the Kitchen?

Semiotics of the Kitchen (1974/75) is a very important early feminist video artwork. In this video, Rosler pretends to be a cooking show host. She shows kitchen tools in alphabetical order. But her actions become strange and funny. She even uses her body like a signal system.

Rosler made this video to question what society expects from women in the kitchen. She also wanted to show how language shapes these expectations. It asks if a woman can truly "speak for herself."

Other Video Art by Rosler

Martha Rosler has made many other video works. Some of her videos, like Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1982), explore how mass media influences us. Other videos, such as A Simple Case for Torture, or How to Sleep at Night (1983), deal with big global issues and power.

Rosler uses storytelling and images from TV to make viewers think differently. She says that video helps her create "decoys" that challenge commercial television.

Photography and Photomontage

Rosler's photo/text work The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems (1974/75) is a key work in modern photography. It shows 45 black and white photos. Some photos show storefronts in the Bowery, which was a famous "skid row" in New York City.

These photos are shown in a grid. This shows that both pictures and words have limits when trying to describe human experiences or social problems.

Rosler's well-known series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home (c. 1967–72) is a collection of photomontages. These artworks combine pictures of fancy middle-class homes with photos from the Vietnam War. She made these images into flyers and handed them out at anti-war protests.

The pictures for these artworks came from magazines like Life Magazine. Rosler wanted to show how the world of war and the world of home were connected. She suggested that both were influenced by similar ideas.

She made new versions of this series in 2004 and 2008. These new works focused on the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan. Rosler wanted to show that some problems from the Vietnam War era were still happening.

Another important series is Body Beautiful, or Beauty Knows No Pain (c. 1965–72). These photomontages look at how women and home life are shown in photographs.

Much of Rosler's art focuses on anti-war and feminist ideas. She brings private, home-related topics into the public eye. This allows her to make strong statements about politics and society.

Exhibitions and Projects

Martha Rosler has had many solo art shows. A big show of her work called “Positions in the Life World” was shown in five European cities and in New York from 1998 to 2000.

In 1989, Rosler created a project called "If You Lived Here..." instead of having a solo show. For this project, over 50 artists, filmmakers, photographers, and activists worked together. They explored issues like housing, homelessness, and city planning. This project included three exhibitions and public discussions.

In 2012, Rosler held her solo show Meta-Monumental Garage Sale at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. This show was a new version of sales she had held in the 1970s. These sales were inspired by garage sales she saw in California.

The MoMA sale had over 14,000 items. It included things Rosler owned and items from museum staff and the public. The project made people think about art, value, and the economic roles of women.

From 2005, e-flux sponsored the "Martha Rosler Library." This was a reading room with over 7,500 books from Rosler's own collection. It traveled to many places, including Germany, France, and Scotland. Visitors could read books or make free copies.

In 2018, the Jewish Museum in New York City showed Martha Rosler: Irrespective. This exhibition looked at her art from the 1960s to the present day.

Activist vs. Political Art

Martha Rosler's project "If You Lived Here..." aimed to show the problem of homelessness. Some people wondered if an art show could truly solve such a big problem. Rosler explained the difference between being an activist and an artist who makes political art.

She said that an activist works closely with a community on a specific issue to get certain results. As an artist, she makes art. She also taught full-time. She works with activists, but she knows that art shows alone cannot solve big problems.

Rosler makes art about many social and political ideas. These include civil rights, anti-war efforts, and women's rights. She is an artist who makes political art. She often works with her students, helping a new generation create art that explores important social issues.

Personal Life

Martha Rosler's son is Josh Neufeld, who writes and draws graphic novels. They have worked together on some projects.

Published Works

Martha Rosler has written many essays that have been published in magazines like Artforum. Her essays often explore topics like cooking, images of women, and responses to war. Her 1981 essay, "In, Around, and Afterthoughts (on documentary photography)," is very famous. It helped people understand that photographs are not always neutral and that how they are shown matters.

Rosler has published sixteen books. Some of her books include Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Essays 1975-2001 and If You Lived Here, which talks about her project on housing.

Awards and Recognition

Martha Rosler has received many awards for her art:

• 2005: Spectrum International Prize in Photography
• 2006: Oskar Kokoschka Prize (Austria's highest fine arts award)
• 2007: Anonymous Was A Woman Award
• 2010: Lifetime Achievement Award (Guggenheim Museum)
• 2012: Doctorate in Fine Arts Honoris Causa (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design)
• 2016: New Foundation Seattle Inaugural award (for a woman artist working for social justice)
• 2017: Lichtwark Prize (City of Hamburg, Germany)

Images for kids

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  Students visiting the "If you can afford to live here, mo-o-ove!!" exhibition

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  Martha Rosler Library.

See also

• Feminist art movement in the United States