Semiotics of the Kitchen

Martha Rosler

Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975

Artwork text

Martha Rosler’s short film Semiotics of the Kitchen, in which the artist herself performs, is a feminist critique of the role of the woman relegated to the kitchen. In her film, Rosler portrays a TV presenter, adopting the humor and kitchen setting characteristic of TV shows by the pioneering cook Julia Child, which enjoyed great popularity in the US from the 1960s. Yet the artist herself never takes to her role. On the contrary: Clad in an apron and standing between the fridge, the table, and the stove, Rosler demonstrates in Kafkaesque alphabetical order the function of common kitchen utensils, ranging from the knife and the nutcracker to the rolling pin, becoming increasingly begrudging and recalcitrant. She thus expresses pointedly her frustrated boredom and rage over the restriction of this traditional world. “A serious-looking woman, the antithesis of the perfect TV housewife, stands in front of a static camera and presents an alphabetical lexicon of cooking utensils like a sales or TV demonstration. The significance of each individual utensil, instruments of domestic servitude, are transformed into a lexicon of aggression and frustration by the performer’s gestures and demeanor.”1 (Jürgen Tabor) 1 Sabine Breitwieser, “Illustrierte Werkliste: Kurzbeschreibungen,” in Martha Rosler: Positionen in der Lebenswelt, ed. Sabine Breitwieser, exh. cat. (Vienna: Generali Foundation; Köln: König, 1999), 365.