Script published in Peter Lang (ed) R-Lab, Sites, Artifacts, and Signs. Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, May 2018
Architecture as gesture; desire in print. Inheriting Rosler’s words and methodologies – reading Vogue through the lens of sarcasm and performance – this live reading used embodied citation, understood as the act not only of acknowledging, but of summoning Rosler, of ‘bringing her here’, to reconsider the IKEA catalogue through her eyes.
Almost forty years after Rosler’s video performance was made, her words resonate powerfully in the reframing of the world’s most read artifact as a hugely powerful spatial infrastructure of desire, or, to use Keller Easterling’s term, an ‘active form’, a software with the capacity to model, change, and generate [gendered] space on a global scale.
Script below / Listen to the reading here:
[Script:
Hi.
This performative reading is called ‘Reading the IKEA Catalogue: A Tribute to Martha Rosler Reads Vogue – 1982’
You can use the provided materials whilst I read.
What is the IKEA catalogue? what is Sweden? It is a lukewarm lagoon of democracy, it is taste. It is design. It is healthy romance, family, blondness and youth. It is desire. What is IKEA? it is the allure of the elevated everyday. Luxurious simplicity, accessible sublime.
Wishing, dreaming, winning, success. Nordic allure. Healthy sex. Love. Nature. Respect. Balance. Respect for the environment. Democracy. Furniture. Democratic furniture. Exercise. Loving and winning. Career, travel, family, upbringing. Knowing how, knowing when.
It is ambiance. It is art, it is design, it is architecture. It is a perfect morning. It’s the new you, the you you want to be, the you you can be. The one you wish you weren’t anymore. It is the sun, the skin, the pose of an effortlessly perfect life. It is inspiration for the woman who identifies with her social betters somewhere colder. It is knowing just how much, it is knowing just when, when to begin, when to stop, a touch of yellow and a dracaena. It is comfort, it is the sparse, balanced, perfect luxury of having it all, all, all.
The IKEA catalogue print run is bigger than the Bible. It is more influential than the Bible. It is the Western Bible.
Worldwide circulation: 208 million copies in 2013. 300 pages, 12,000 products. 75% computer generated images. Natural affordability. With editions published in Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Nether- lands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States.
IKEA is owned by Ingvar Kamprad. Ingvar Kamprad owns IKEA, the IKEA Foundation, IKANO, Inter Ikea, and the IKANO bank. Ingvar Kamprad owns over 2000 hectares of land in Europe. Ikea is a family business – it is not in the stock market, it is run by the family, in the family, for the big global family.
Ingvar Kamprad, a great connoisseur of the importance of creating global fantasies of a better life knows the importance of the sunbeams, the unmade beds, the couple tucked away in the showers, behind the pages, making love, making babies, he knows the importance of a steaming cup of coffee, of the look of noble materials, of wood, of clay, of stainless steel, of white organic cotton, of white, white, white, of greens, greens, greens, of plants, and green images of plants, of all the flowers and plants flanking the entrance of the common man’s paradise, heaven on earth, of a child’s vibrant, innocent, colourful drawing casually displayed on the house fridge.
Good taste counts, and you can afford it. I know it, you know it, he knows it. The colour is always devastating, never simply blonde but dreamy curls and the whitest smile, rich diverse brown, effortlessly perfect organic white.
Splendour, the art of small pleasures, elevation of the everyday, health, architecture. Having it all, all, all, all. It’s the curtain flowing, it’s the ripe vineyard tomatoes, it’s the sunny desk, it’s the beautiful, pensive, masculine, smiling dad, lovingly looking at his radiant, happy, well-nourished 12 year-old.
Success, comfort, space, light, offspring. It is quilts, plants, bedrooms, mattresses, lofts, vegetable gardens, prefabricated physical bliss. Affordable perfection, designer chic, organic pornography, spending just enough, dreaming enough – it is the you you were always meant to be].
