Virginia Woolf famously wrote of the importance of having a ‘room of one’s own’, a physical and psychological place women could truly be free to express themselves.
An all-female exhibition just opened at the Sadie Coles HQ London explores the way women artists from the late 20th century have looked at the aesthetics and structures of domestic architecture, and the way this affects social constructs – designed to keep women indoors, as much as to provide a place to retreat from the outside world.
’My house, Providence Rhode Island’, by Francesca Woodman, 1976
Oppressive, chamber-like structures that ruminate on the idea of escape dominate the gallery on Kingly Street. The exhibition’s opening statement is Marianne Vitale’s totemic lumber sculpture, Double Decker Outhouse (2011), looming above you as you walk in the door. Klara Lidén’s Teenage Room (2009), is also reminiscent of a prison, with an axe attached to the door that moves up threateningly as you pull the handle.
Inside is the skeletal structure of a bunk bed, painted black as if someone has just torched it and made their escape through the hole cut out in the wall. Not for the claustrophobic, Andrea Zittlel’s steel flotation tank—part of her Escape Vehicles series of 1996—comes with an underwater sound system, twin-spa light system and temperature control.
Installation view Heidi Bucher’s work at Sadie Coles
Most of the rooms here, though, are fragile, either metaphorically, or in the way they’re constructed—providing scant protection from the outside world—suggesting how easy it is to intrude into private space, something that resonates with today’s social media mentality. Heidi Bucher’s reconstruction of her father’s study, for example, transforms the solid space into gauzy latex sheets, delicately dangling in the gallery (Herrenzimmer, 1977-79); Sarah Lucas’ smoking cabin (Chuffing Away to Oblivion, 1996) is made of tabloid newspapers and basic timber wood; Andra Ursuta’s T, Vladimirescu Nr. 5, Kitchen (2013), a miniature room in disarray based on a room in the artist’s childhood home, is symbolically encased in glass.
In Joanna Piotrowska’s photographs, the artist asked her subjects to construct temporary shelters within their homes—makeshift dens that express their mental states. Including well-known works by Francesca Woodman, Nan Goldin and Louise Bourgeois, this exhibition is a discerning reflection on the ambivalent functions of domestic space and women’s complicated relationship with the home.
Installation by performance artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd
Sculptures by Beverly Buchanan
Photographer Nan Goldin's autobiographical works are included in the show
Photographs by Francesca Woodman and The Shack, by Rachel Feinstein, 2001
In Joanna Piotrowska’s photographs, the artist asked her subjects to construct temporary shelters within their homes
INFORMATION
’Room’ is on view until 18 February. For more information, visit the Sadie Coles website
ADDRESS
62 Kingly Street
London W1B 5QN
-
A guide to the best fashion stores Copenhagen has to offerWallpaper* picks the must-visit fashion stores in Copenhagen – from big-name boutiques and historic department stores to local labels and the best in second-hand, each presenting a fresh take on Danish design
-
Indian studio Compartment S4 celebrates architectural collaborationCompartment S4, the Indian architecture studio out of Ahmedabad and Mumbai, is true to its collective nature
-
A revamped Edinburgh apartment combines Californian-style modernism with modern craftArcher + Braun have transformed an apartment in a historic house with finely tuned contemporary additions and sympathetic attention to detail
-
Inside the distorted world of artist George RouyFrequently drawing comparisons with Francis Bacon, painter George Rouy is gaining peer points for his use of classic techniques to distort the human form
-
‘I'm endlessly fascinated by the nude’: Somaya Critchlow’s intimate and confident drawings are on show in London‘Triple Threat’ at Maximillian William gallery in London is British artist Somaya Critchlow’s first show dedicated solely to drawing
-
Surrealism as feminist resistance: artists against fascism in Leeds‘The Traumatic Surreal’ at the Henry Moore Institute, unpacks the generational trauma left by Nazism for postwar women
-
Looking forward to Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary partyFrom 9-12 May 2025, Tate Modern, one of London’s most adored art museums, will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a lively weekend of festivities
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA week in the world of Wallpaper*. Here's how our editors have been entertaining themselves in the run up to Christmas
-
Love, melancholy and domesticity: Anna Calleja is a painter to watchAnna Calleja explores everyday themes in her exhibition, ‘One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night’, at Sim Smith, London
-
Ndayé Kouagou speaks the language of the chaotic social media influencer in LondonNdayé Kouagou celebrates meandering incoherence with an exhibition, ‘A Message for Everybody’, at Gathering in London
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
