The House. Between life and display, domestic habitats in contemporary art

The separation of the domestic and the public spheres emerges parallel to the entrance of the private individual onto the stage of history in the mid 1800s. For the first time, the place of dwelling is opposed to the place of work. With the rise of individualism as an ideology, the house becomes an expression of personality, a topography of the self. Consequently, the house also develops into a gendered realm, where women are to oversee the repetitive, immanent domestic labors that are tied with motherhood, and to maintain the house’s inner order while men are in charge of its architecture. “Men can build houses, but they can never make homes”, Marguerite Duras wrote in the 1980s.

As an interface between inner and outer worlds, the house is as mental as it is physical, characterized by what is visible and the emotions that fill it. Houses serve as incubators and containers for thoughts and things, where life is lived, organized, curated and displayed. The house is a refuge or a study, a workplace or a showcase. At times, it functions like an exhibition or a museum. The exhibition, in return, may act at times like a house. The course will pick up on various transitions and modifications houses generated or underwent in the context of contemporary art.

From the cellar to the attic, through the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen, we will discuss contemporary artworks that feature, display or act out the sections of the house. Beginning in two Modernist utopias: Merzbau by Kurt Schwitters’s (1923-1933; 1937;1947), a transformation of a family house into a Gesamtkunstwerk-sculpture that is potentially ever expanding; and Kabinett der Abstrakten by El Lissitzky’s (1927) who wanted to develop new exhibition modules for the presentation of constructivist art, we will examine the difference between household and presentation, architecture and art.

We will read texts, watch films, go to see exhibitions and meet with artists, curators and gallerists. Students are required to prepare a theoretical presentations and hand in a written paper or a film by the end of the course.

First meeting and introduction: Friday, 22nd march 2024, 2:00 pm, room N201