Martha Rosler

Works

House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home2008

Photomontage

76,2 × 259,1 cm

Invasion, from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home, New Series2008

Photomontage

77,2 × 137,2 cm

Point and Shoot, from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home, New Series2008

Photomontage

76,2 × 98,1 cm

Reading Hannah Arendt (Politically, for an American in the 21st Century)2006

Installation with excerpts from Hannah Arendt's writings, in English and German, on transparent acetate panels

dimensions variable

Reading Hannah Arendt (Politically, for an American in the 21st Century)2006

Installation with excerpts from Hannah Arendt's writings, in English and German, on transparent acetate panels

dimensions variable

Party Building1981

Digital c-print

27,9 × 41,3 cm

Workshop1981

Digital c-print

27,9 × 41,3 cm

Men, Shop Window1981

Digital c-print

27,9 × 41,3 cm

Plaza de la Revolución, Havana1981

Silver gelatin type LE print

27,9 × 41,3 cm

Men's Clothiers, Santiago1981

Silver gelatin type LE print

27,9 × 41,3 cm

Window Shopping, Havana1981

Silver gelatin type LE print

27,9 × 41,3 cm

Militia Headquarters, Camagüey1981

Silver gelatin type LE print

41,3 × 27,9 cm

Poetry Festival Banners, Trinidad1981

Silver gelatin type LE print

41,3 × 27,9 cm

Off the Shelf: Planes, Trains, and Under Ground2018

C-print

71 × 56 cm

Off the Shelf: Capitalism, Democracy2018

C-print

71 × 56 cm

Off the Shelf: Gardening Fantasia2008

C-print

71 × 56 cm

Prototype (God Bless America)2006

Video (color, silent)

1'

Backyard Economy I1974

color, silent

3' 26''

Backyard Economy II (Diane Germain Mowing)1974

color, silent

6' 32''

Biography

Martha Rosler was born in 1943 Brooklyn, New York, where she lives and works.
She works with Galleria Raffaella Cortese since 2009.

Rosler works with video, photography, text, installation, and performance. Her work focuses on the public sphere, exploring issues that range from from everyday life and the media to architecture and the built environment, especially as they affect women.

Rosler has for many years produced works on war and the national security climate — connecting life at home with the conduct of war abroad — in which her photomontage series played a critical part. She has also published several books of photographs, texts, and commentary on public space, ranging from airports and roads to housing and gentrification. Her writing appeared numerous times in publications such as Artforum, e-flux journal, and Texte zur Kunst. In 2012, she presented a series of photographs, shot during her trip to Cuba in January 1981, while on a tour organized by Ana Mendieta and Lucy Lippard. Taken only two months after Reagan’s election as president and three months after the culmination of the six-month-long Mariel boatlift, these photographs regard Havana’s military uniform stores, Brutalist architecture, and portraits of Che dispassionately, as so much context for the staging of Cuban public life.

Rosler has had numerous solo exhibitions at various international institutions including: The Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; MARe Museum of Recent Art in Bucharest (2022); Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma, Spain (2020); MAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, Chile (2019); The Jewish Museum, New York (2018); Kunstmuseum Basel (2018); MACBA, Barcelona (2017); Seattle Museum of Art (2016); Sprengel Museum, Hannover (2013), MOMA, New York, (2012); The Centro José Guerrero, Granada (2009-10); La Virreina, Barcelona (2010), the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007); the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1990); and the Dia Art Foundation, New York (1989). She has been included in numerous group exhibitions at institutions such as the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2017); The Serralves Museum, Porto (2017); The Brooklyn Museum, New York (2015); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015); the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2013); the LA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, (2011); Skulptur Projekte Münster 07 (2007); dOCUMENTA 7 (1982) & dOCUMENTA 12 (2007), Kassel; the Venice Biennale (2003); the Liverpool Biennial (2004); Tate Modern, London (2005, 2015).

Read more

Gallery Exhibitions

Public exhibitions

Ambienti 1956-2010 Environments by Women Artists II
10 April – 20 October 2024
MAXXI, Rome
Martha Rosler. How Do We Get There From Here?
21 February – 10 May 2020
Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Martha Rosler: Passionate Signals
17 September 2019 – 31 January 2020
Neubauer Collegium Chicago, University of Chicago
Si tú vivieras aquí
26 July – 13 October 2019
MAC, Parque Forestal, Santiago
War Games: Martha Rosler & Hito Steyerl
5 May 2018 – 20 January 2019
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel
Women House
9 March – 28 May 2018
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home
11 October 2017 – 4 February 2018
Mamco, Geneva
An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940-2017
18 August – 27 August 2017
An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940-2017, New York

Press

Martha Rosler Wants to Know Why We Still Aren’t Outraged
NY Times
August 10, 2023
Martha Rosler
Fondazione Imago Mundi
July 18, 2023
L’arte comunitaria e la relazione con l’altro
November 22, 2021
Istruzioni per battere il caos. Primo passo, andare a votare
IL – Il Sole 24 ORE
October 2020
Ana Vieira, Marina Planas and Martha Rosler Join Forces at Es Baluard Museum
Widewalls
February 26, 2020
Marta Rosler
Artforum
March 2019
Martha Rosler's Wicked and Welcome Sense of Humor
Hyperallergic
December 13, 2018
Martha Rosler by James Eischen
BOMB
September 23, 2012
This Getty Show Reveals The Deep Roots Of The Media's Woes -- And How Artists Can Rescue The News
Forbes
January 11, 2017

Publications

Irrespective
Martha Rosler
Yale University Press
New Haven
2018
The Art of Cooking
Martha Rosler
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
2016
Service: A Trilogy on Colonization
Martha Rosler
Printed Matter
New York
1978/2008
Martha Rosler: Culture Class
Edited by Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle
Sternberg Press
Berlin
2013

Videos

MAXXI museum honors women artists in new immersive show
2024
2016 Walter Annenberg Lecture: Martha Rosler | Live from the Whitney
2016

Focus