Womanhouse

This research on the theme of home by women artists began with the story of the Womanhouse in California, an abandoned house taken over by a group of women artists in the 1970s as a studio for their creations. From this 1971 project by Judith Chicago and Miriam Shapiro came the idea to organise an exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC between 2017 and 2018. The exhibition catalogue brings together most of the works on display. Of all the sections, the one that aroused my curiosity and attention the most is the one that groups together artists who worked on the concept of the woman-house, starting with Louise Bourgeois in the last years of her career. The house that grows on a woman's body symbolises the inseparability of these two concepts, which together give rise to a new concept: the woman-house. The sense of protection and shelter found in the home is also found in the woman. Although this is a shared thought in Western society, the works produced by the artists reveal a sense of unease, as if these house-women somehow want to escape. It is a bit like Laurie Simmons' house with legs, which makes me think of a house that can escape. Andrea Zittel's works can also be seen in this light, as mobile environments. Another variant of the woman-home comes from the magnum opus of Niki de Saint Phalle. This summer I had the pleasure of visiting her extraordinary Tarot Garden, a veritable park inhabited by colourful monumental sculptures reminiscent of Gaudi's style in Barcelona and representing the 22 major arcana of the Seville Tarot. Among them, there is one in particular: The Empress Sphinx, a habitable sculpture-architecture. Inside, the artist has created a house in which she lived during the years she worked on the Tarot Garden. Here, it is a home in the truest sense of the word, a home for women, for artists, a truly safe place where they can feel protected and free to express themselves, far from the world. Most of these women artists were and are involved in the feminist movement, with particular reference to the second wave of feminism in the 1970s. The works they create question the female condition not only within the home, but also within society itself. The idea of the home as a symbol of female identity and emancipation resonated throughout the art world. These artistic interpretations of the 'woman-home' challenge traditional gender roles and explore the intricate relationship between women and their domestic spaces. In many ways, they reflect the broader social changes and evolving roles of women in contemporary society. The works of artists like Louise Bourgeois, Laurie Simmons, Andrea Zittel, and Niki de Saint Phalle provide us with a unique perspective on the complexities of female identity. They take the concept of the home, traditionally seen as a place of shelter and confinement, and turn it into a symbol of strength, creativity, and liberation. It's interesting to note that the representation of the house in art is not limited to the physical structure but extends to the emotional and psychological dimensions of the concept. The idea of a woman as a house, and a house as a woman, blurs the boundaries between the public and the private, the internal and external, the personal and the collective.