Martha Rosler: Irrespective
2018
The Jewish Museum, New York City
Cultural (Completed)
4,500 SF
Fabrication: South Side Design and Building
Photography (first image): Jason Mandella
Photography (all others): Michael Vahrenwald/Esto
An exhibition creating a spatial framework through which to organize thirty-plus years of Martha Rosler’s work—a range of media, rhetoric, and type.
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
The work itself is full of contradictions and transgressions, and in looking closely at the artist’s career, we understood the work as in dialogue both with the city and with larger cultural structures. The work acts to reshuffle the city and those structures, mostly through highlighting how they may be seen anew through different perspectives, collaging, and spatial layering.
We took these methods and applied them to the layout of the galleries, creating a diagonal wall grid off-set from the perimeter walls by 45 degrees. As visitors walked through the spaces they were always walking ‘against’ the grain of the museum itself, and the resultant galleries varied largely in size, character, and arrangement. This meant that each space was distinct, and that there was a sense of disorientation throughout the exhibition that resonated with the artist’s work through its slippages and overlaps.
2018
The Jewish Museum, New York City
Cultural (Completed)
4,500 SF
Fabrication: South Side Design and Building
Photography (first image): Jason Mandella
Photography (all others): Michael Vahrenwald/Esto
An exhibition creating a spatial framework through which to organize thirty-plus years of Martha Rosler’s work—a range of media, rhetoric, and type.
The work itself is full of contradictions and transgressions, and in looking closely at the artist’s career, we understood the work as in dialogue both with the city and with larger cultural structures. The work acts to reshuffle the city and those structures, mostly through highlighting how they may be seen anew through different perspectives, collaging, and spatial layering.
We took these methods and applied them to the layout of the galleries, creating a diagonal wall grid off-set from the perimeter walls by 45 degrees. As visitors walked through the spaces they were always walking ‘against’ the grain of the museum itself, and the resultant galleries varied largely in size, character, and arrangement. This meant that each space was distinct, and that there was a sense of disorientation throughout the exhibition that resonated with the artist’s work through its slippages and overlaps.