April 1, 2020
Alex Da Corte, Rubber Pencil Devil, 2018. Courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art.
What the museum says: “‘For a Dreamer of Houses,’ an imaginative and immersive exhibition, explores the significance of the spaces we inhabit and how they represent ourselves, our values, and our desires. …The featured artists use forms derived from dwellings or furnishings to investigate ideas including belonging, alienation, fantasy, gender, and the body.
The exhibition takes inspiration from philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s influential 1958 book The Poetics of Space and his use of the house as a metaphor for psychological and cultural development. Fifty-four works in a variety of media by more than 35 artists from around the globe demonstrate the evocative power of domestic objects and structures.”
Why it’s worth a look: At a moment when most of us are spending a whole lot more time at home, this show feels especially timely with its expansive view of domesticity in its many forms. The show features more than 50 works, most from within the museum’s own collection, and is organized by themes drawn from the chapters in Bachelard’s book.
Some of the works, like Alex Da Corte or Do Ho Suh’s three-dimensional installations, relate to the literal structure of a house in sections titled “Dialectics of Inside and Outside” and “Shells.” Others, like Olivia Erlanger’s sculpture of a mermaid tail hanging from a washing machine, is included in a section called “Drawers, Chests, and Wardrobes,” about objects as repositories of private desires. Many of the works explore ideas of shelter as a concept instead of a literal place, a way of seeking refuge, or delineating boundaries between spaces.
