Martha Rosler at EAI

Last night, Electronic Arts Intermix presented "Martha Rosler: Kitchen Theatre" to a very full house. The selection of Rosler's videos ended with the premiere of most recent project, which documented the re-performance of her 1975 work, 'Semiotics of the Kitchen,' the first work screened in the program. The original work, which features Rosler before a static camera listing off an alphabetized list of cooling utensils, as she "demonstrates" the objects' use with gestures, which depart from the traditional gestures associated with the tool.



The 2011 performance, held at Whitechapel in London, documented an open call, where women convened and re-performed the iconic video within the gallery space. A revolving cast of twenty-six women participated in the live restaging of Rosler's script. The 2011 work traces their auditions, rehearsals, and finally, the public event.

The program also celebrated Rosler's forthcoming publication The Art of Cooking, a rediscovered manuscript created by the artist on the rhetorics of cooking and art production, made up almost entirely of quotations from cooking manuals and books on gastronomy.


The program:

A budding gourmet
1974, 17:45 min, b&w, sound

Semiotics of the Kitchen
1975, 6:09 min, b&w, sound

The East is Red, The West is Bending
1977, 19:57 min, color, sound

Semiotics of the Kitchen: an Audition
2011, 10:26 min, color, sound