Martha Rosler

Born -

Since the early 1970s, Martha Rosler has used photography, performance, writing, and video to deconstruct cultural reality. Describing her work, Rosler says, “The subject is the commonplace — I am trying to use video to question the mythical explanations of everyday life. We accept the clash of public and private as natural, yet their separation is historical. The antagonism of the two spheres, which have in fact developed in tandem, is an ideological fiction — a potent one. I want to explore the relationships between individual consciousness, family life, and culture under capitalism.” 

Avoiding a pedantic stance, Rosler characteristically lays out visual and verbal material in a manner that allows the contradictions to gradually emerge, so that the audience can discern these disjunctions for themselves. By making her ideas accessible, Rosler invites her audience to re-examine the dynamics and demands of ideology, urging critical consciousness of the individual compromises exacted by society, and opening the door to a radical re-thinking of how cultural “reality” is constructed for the economic and political benefit of a select group.

Also see:
Martha Rosler: An Interview

Artist Collection List

Title Year Runtime Collection
A budding gourmet 1974 17 minutes Single Titles
A Simple Case for Torture, or How to Sleep at Night  1983 1 hour 2 minutes Single Titles
Backyard Economy I 1974 3 minutes 26 seconds Single Titles
Backyard Economy II (Diane Germain Mowing) 1974 6 minutes 32 seconds Single Titles
Because This Is Britain 2012 3 minutes Single Titles
Born to Be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads the Strange Case of Baby $/M, With Paper Tiger Television 1988 35 minutes 20 seconds Single Titles
Chile on the Road to NAFTA, Accompanied by the National Police Band 1997 10 minutes 46 seconds Single Titles
Domination and the Everyday 1978 32 minutes 7 seconds Early Video Art, Single Titles
Flower Fields (Color Field Painting) 1974 17 minutes Single Titles
How Do We Know What Home Looks Like? The Unité d’Habitation of Le Corbusier at Firminy, France 1993 31 minutes 18 seconds Single Titles
I Say I Am: Program 1 1998 1 hour 5 seconds Curated Compilations
I Say I Am: Program 1 & 2 1998 2 hours 11 minutes 50 seconds Curated Compilations
If it's too bad to be true, it could be DISINFORMATION 1985 16 minutes 26 seconds Single Titles
Losing: A Conversation with the Parents 1977 18 minutes 39 seconds Early Video Art, Single Titles
Martha Rosler Reads Vogue, With Paper Tiger Television 1983 25 minutes 22 seconds Single Titles
martha rosler: crossings 2020 7 hours 3 minutes 28 seconds Box Sets, Compilations, Single Artist Compilations
Museums will eat your lunch 2013 2 minutes 32 seconds Single Titles
Pencicle of Praise 2018 12 minutes 40 seconds Single Titles
Prototype (God Bless America) 2006 1 minute 10 seconds Single Titles
Seattle: Hidden Histories 1995 13 minutes 8 seconds Single Titles
Secrets from the Street: No Disclosure 1980 12 minutes 27 seconds Single Titles
Semiotics of the Kitchen 1975 6 minutes 9 seconds Early Video Art, Single Titles
Semiotics of the Kitchen: An Audition 2011 9 minutes 44 seconds Single Titles
Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the U.S. 1968-1980 1995 16 hours 26 minutes Box Sets, Curated Compilations
Surveying the First Decade: Volume 1 1995 7 hours 25 minutes 25 seconds Box Sets, Curated Compilations
The East Is Red, The West Is Bending 1977 20 minutes Early Video Art, Single Titles
Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained 1977 39 minutes 20 seconds Early Video Art, Single Titles