mattiearchive: Womanhouse: Judy Chicago and Miriam SchapiroWomanhouse was an up and running installa
mattiearchive: Womanhouse: Judy Chicago and Miriam SchapiroWomanhouse was an up and running installation from January 30 – February 28, 1972. It was built and located inside a borrowed dilapidated Hollywood Mansion. A group of students in a groundbreaking CalArts Feminist Art Program, led by their professors Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, turned the mansion into a walkable art installation and performance space.Above: Nurturant KitchenThe all-female group of 30 Cal arts students who created the Womanhouse did so with the intention of subverting, exaggerating, parodying, and otherwise calling out the cultural and societal expectations of an American 1960s-70s housewife.Above: Leah’s RoomEach room was designed to tackle a specific aspect of a woman’s role in society.The women held consciousness-raising sessions in which they discussed and brainstormed about how to approach individual rooms and projects, using their own experiences of home and femininity as the subject. Rooms include the Nurturant kitchen, where the woman’s duty to feed is treated as grueling uncompensated labor, and Leah’s Room, where an aging courtesan applies makeup continually as an effort to hide her aging and maintain her worth.Above: Crocheted EnvironmentThe Woman House was created using a multitude of materials and tools.The female students performed significant work on the house, learning traditionally masculine skills in the process, making the very act of its creation subversive at the time. Above: Menstruation BathroomI find this project inspiring in many ways. I love the collaborative aspect and the brainstorming sessions involved in its creation. I would love to be involved in something like this someday. I enjoy the idea of pushing the feminine aesthetic to the extreme. The combination of the familiar, the gaudy and the gross appeals to me. I think Womanhouse is interesting as it combines performance and handicraft into a physical space. -- source link