Martha Rosler’s performance video Semiotics of the Kitchen offers a feminist critique of gender stereotypes and the domestic sphere. Standing at a counter, Rosler picks up various kitchen utensils in alphabetical order, beginning with ‘apron’, and names them loudly. The artist demonstrates the function of each item in a comic and abrupt way, imitating Julia Child’s famous cooking show in the 1960s while revealing the deep-seated angst behind the image of a traditional housewife. Rosler’s actions, whether operating a nutcracker or hitting the table with a tenderiser, become increasingly aggressive. To form the letter ‘Z’, she slashes the air violently with a knife. The sense of repressed rage in her performance recalls the frustration that many women have felt in a home environment stifled by tradition. As Rosler remarked of the work, ‘as she speaks, she names her own oppression’.
Martha Rosler (b. 1943, United States) works across video, photography, text-based art, performance, critical writing, and installation art to construct incisive social and political analyses of contemporary culture. Imbued with a deadpan wit, her videos explore how socio-economic realities and political ideologies dominate all facets of life.