“Cult of Domesticity” at LUmkA
Installation view of Cult of Domesticity. Courtesy of LUmkA.
Curated by Cortney Connolly, LUmkA’s Cult of Domesticity occupies the bedroom of a private apartment. While an apartment art exhibition is almost a curatorial rite of passage amid New York City’s limited real estate, the bedroom setting, however, perfectly responds to this show’s titular premise, which references a set of expectations for “true womanhood” popularized in the 19th-century US, especially among the upper and middle classes. This social indoctrination of women into spousal and maternal roles focuses on the four pillars of “piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness,” which has been criticized as oppressive and restricting to women’s professional development outside of the home. On the other hand, some scholars such as Susan M. Cruea have linked this culture to the early development of feminist activism, as it attributes a sense of “moral authority” to women in society while allowing them to interact, bond, and identify with one another closely.
Having opened in the fourth quarter of 2024, Cult of Domesticity contributes to a timely and urgent conversation surrounding our society’s deeply gendered infrastructure. The run of the show coincides with the anxious speculation prior to the 2024 US Election, the (still ongoing) grievances afterward, and the subsequent widespread media coverage of the 4B movement. Meanwhile, social media trends such as “tradwife,” “soft girl living,” and “stay-at-home girlfriend” have proliferated, with influencers [1] creating homemaking content that reinscribes traditional gender roles. In response, artists Ilayda Çelik, Ruby Chen, Nereida Patricia, and Eden Taff are digging deeper into womanhood’s emotional, physical, and even spatial complexities, unpacking the parallel truths that underpin domesticity and femininity.
Ilayda Çelik, Bedsore, 2024. Bedsheet, comforter, pillows, and paper towel. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and LUmkA.
At the center of the exhibition space, Ilayda Çelik’s Bedsore (2024) consists of a pigmented mattress leaning haphazardly against the wall. Bedsheets and a comforter twist and turn onto themselves, their off-white fabrics discolored in patterns that resemble the imprints of bodily fluids. A surface for repose, once smooth and comforting, is reconfigured into a slippery slope where one cannot rest easy. Instead, there is a nervous quality to the work. It’s almost like that moment when you are changing your bedsheet with someone in the room, only to realize that there is a patch of period blood or sweat stain on the mattress cover. The piece reifies the pervasiveness and discomfort of self-consciousness that stems from expectations of hygiene and upkeep, even behind closed doors. It also channels the feeling of exposure that inevitably arises when one’s private furniture is subjected to public scrutiny. Right beneath the sculpture’s surface, a fabric bump calls to mind imageries of pregnancy but also suffocation. With an open rawness reminiscent of Wilke’s sensibilities, Bedsore sets the tone for the show by pinpointing femininity as a state of continuous grappling.
Eden Taff, Untitled (Woman on Striped Bed), 2024. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Courtesy of the artist and LUmkA.
Eden Taff’s paintings portray sensuous, conventionally beautiful female figures/selves with watery eyes, shiny lips, and smooth skin. In She Was Always Here for Me (2024), an Ophelian figure emerges from a lush swamp, playing into the historical trope that imagines femininity as the link between humans and nature. Nonetheless, her gaze is poised and contemplative, reclaiming the sense of dignity and agency otherwise stripped from the Shakespearean archetype. The figure in Untitled (Woman on Striped Bed) (2024), on the other hand, displays a kind of quietude and vulnerability. The interaction between Taff’s painterly gaze and self-perception feels inconclusive, raising the question: Is it possible for female bodies to resist being seen in a sexualizing light? Is the female gaze an effective, fundamental inverse of the male gaze?
Nereida Patricia, Untitled (Blackbird Singing), 2024. Charcoal and pastel on archival paper, 23.4 x 16.5 in. Courtesy of the artist and LUmkA.
A small-scale drawing in charcoal and pastel, Untitled (Blackbird Singing) (2024) by Nereida Patricia is rendered with an intentional naïveté in style. The work depicts a woman holding a cake, accompanied by a scaly cast shadow on the brink of escape. Behind her, a bird’s melodic chirps contrast with her stoic countenance, complicating, if not subverting, an image of domestic bliss. Ruby Chen’s Performance piece 001 (2023)—a custom-made performance costume recontextualized as sculpture—deals with bodily autonomy and individual subjectivity. Made of crocheted chainmail, aluminum plates, and clay, the piece functions as an apparatus of both protection and restriction, which happens to echo the unresolved debate around domestic femininity.
Ruby Chen, Performance piece 001, 2023. Crocheted chainmail, aluminum plates, and clay. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and LUmkA.
Now more than ever, domesticity extends beyond the intimate, the familial, and the private, with its gendered implications increasingly contended. At this trying time when gender rights’ legislative outlook remains uncertain, Cult of Domesticity unveils the inconvenient truth that most people do not have an easy relationship with domesticity and femininity. Instead of suggesting a prescriptive course of action, it urges us to consider the “in-between,” questioning whether it’s possible to sit comfortably with all the complexities that femininity and feminist advocacy contain.
Cult of Domesticity is on view by appointment only at LUmkA, LES, from October 19, 2024 to January 15, 2025.
[1] Still, I wouldn’t characterize “tradwife” influencers as proponents of female subordination or complacent labor market non-participants, as they still generate income through content monetization, operating their personal brand or “aesthetic” as they would any other business, on top of accomplishing laborious tasks at home.
