Last week, I had an assignment for my Contemporary Art History class. Watch Martha Rosler’s video performance “Semiotics of the Kitchen” and write a short response. Now to be honest, this isn’t something I would normally write about on this blog. It’s incredibly layered and highly conceptual. It’s not the kind of Art that is normally accessible to everyone. But then maybe that’s why I’ve decided to write about it.
Perhaps it’s easiest to start with the title of the video, “Semiotics of the Kitchen”. Semiotics, for those that have never had to sit through a class on Art theory or philosophy, is the study of language. Early semiotics argued that language is made up of units and how we interpret those units depends on their organization and how they relate to a greater whole. So letters in relation to a word, or a word in relation to a sentence or paragraph. If you organize letters in a certain way, they stand for something else. So c-a-t stands for a small fluffy animal with pointy ears that occasionally chases mice. Later arguments in semiotics would state that this is not that simple. Language is constantly changing, constantly up for individual interpretation and even sometimes confusing. I would say both arguments apply to this video.
If you head on over to YouTube, you can type in “Semiotics of the Kitchen” and watch the video pretty quickly. It’s about 6 minutes long, so it’s not overwhelming. As you watch, you’ll see a woman (that would be Martha Rosler, folks) going through an alphabetical list of kitchen implements, demonstrating their uses along the way. This may initially seem very simple. Basic implements as they tie in to a whole, the kitchen, using letters as they tie in to their whole, the alphabet. But as you watch, you quickly determine that it is not so easy as all that.
Rosler doesn’t just demonstrate these utensils, she does it with aggressive, even violent, motions. Stabbing, pounding, thrusting and flinging feature heavily here. So what is it Rosler is actually saying? It never gets fully explained in the video, but by combining our knowledge of Rosler as a feminist with her use of the kitchen and the attitude she uses to display each item, we start to get the picture. Perhaps it’s about the societal control of men during that time. Perhaps it’s about domestic violence. Perhaps she’s angry about the idea of women being relegated to specific roles in the home. I would say none of these are wrong.
Often we are able to determine the meaning behind an Artwork through these contextual clues, and Rosler does a good job of conveying a specific mood in this video. Some may not be so simple to read, but starting with the basics here, you can apply the interpretation of context clues to other pieces of Art just by looking at time period and title.
Art For The Everyman 