Forty-five years after "The Semiotics of the Kitchen", Martha Rosler's breakthrough work that parodied Julia Child's culinary TV programs from the 1960s, Polana presents The Kitchen, a collective exhibition at Clay.Warsaw. The focal points of the exhibition are three kitchens connected to the main hall, an ideal setting for a contemporary culinary TV program. There is also an additional, fourth kitchen – an installation by Martyna Kielesińska.

For centuries, the kitchen has been a site of domestic violence, but it is also a place where rebellion is born. It is no coincidence that the famous South American cacelorazo, a form of popular protest where people hit a pot or pan with a spoon to call for attention, was born in the kitchen. However, in popular imagery the kitchen is often the background for the meetings of all kinds of conspirators, who are almost always exclusively male.

In the recent lockdown, the kitchen stopped being a private space. Publicized, shown, and illuminated, it has become the setting for various vlogs – often quite creative and experimental. Yet for most of us, the kitchen has become a symbol of isolation during lockdown and in our exhibition we approach it not only from a feminist point of view, but also from a universal perspective, as a setting for a global health disaster. The works we show at the exhibition seem to emphasize the aesthetic function of the room but also that its sterile beauty carries with it memories of trauma. The sterile white kitchen by Weronika Gęsicka, with its scaled-up kitchen utensils, evokes a dissecting room. The merciless video by Kielesińska shows Jerry the mouse constantly knocking out Tom the cat, while the eponymous protagonist of the Trecartin's movie is going crazy again and again.

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Martha Rosler's and Ryan Trecartin's works courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) and the Artists.
Weronika Gęsicka's works courtesy Jednostka Gallery and the Artist.
Martyna Czech's work courtesy Tomasz Pasiek Collection and the Artist.

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Partner: Clay.Warsaw

The exhibition is part of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2020