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Pencicle of Praise 2018, 12:40 minutes The video begins with a pomp-ridden televised press conference, accompanied by uplifting music. Held early in 2017 at the White House Rose Garden, it showcased the president’s announced withdrawal from the h

Pencicle of Praise
2018, 12:40 minutes

The video begins with a pomp-ridden televised press conference, accompanied by uplifting music. Held early in 2017 at the White House Rose Garden, it showcased the president’s announced withdrawal from the historic Paris Climate Accord. As the video proceeds, we witness Pence and other minions enacting pious gratitude on behalf of the president. With the Vice President lurking in the shot, the video finally launches a takeoff.

Museums will eat your lunch
2013, 2:32 minutes

In this silent video, still images of stores and residential buildings in New York City appear within a cutout template, based on the “giftbox heap” formed by the New Museum silhouette. As these shiny storefronts, dwellings, and official documents of occupancy of the new Bowery in the twenty-first century go by, set phrases relating to the merits and demerits of museums roll desultorily down from above to below.

Because This Is Britain
2012, 3 minutes
Commissioned by Channel 4 for television

A visualization of phrases used by Prime Minister David Cameron during his Oxfordshire speech addressing the events of August 2011. Selected phrases emerge from the stream of his speech, punctuated by images of ordinary passersby, teenagers, youths at a job centre, looters, the Bullingdon Club, ‘riot wombles’ and an Occupy sign.

Semiotics of the Kitchen: An Audition 2011, 9:44 minutes In 2003, for A Short History of Performance, Part II at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Rosler announced an open call for a live re-staging of her seminal 1975 video piece Semiotics o

Semiotics of the Kitchen: An Audition
2011, 9:44 minutes

In 2003, for A Short History of Performance, Part II at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Rosler announced an open call for a live re-staging of her seminal 1975 video piece Semiotics of the Kitchen. Twenty-six women participated in a rotating performance of Rosler's script at the Whitechapel. On a set stocked with culinary utensils, the participants were taped and "broadcast" on television monitors throughout the gallery via live feed. Semiotics of the Kitchen: An Audition documents the preliminary rehearsals with Rosler and the public event, the "audition."

Prototype (God Bless America) 2006, 1:10 minutes A mechanical toy figure dressed as an American soldier plays "God Bless America" on a trumpet. The camera pans down, revealing that the toy's camouflage-clad trouser leg has been rolled up to uncov

Prototype (God Bless America)
2006, 1:10 minutes

A mechanical toy figure dressed as an American soldier plays "God Bless America" on a trumpet. The camera pans down, revealing that the toy's camouflage-clad trouser leg has been rolled up to uncover a mechanism that looks uncannily like a prosthetic limb.

Chile on the Road to NAFTA, Accompanied by the National Police Band 1997, 10:46 minutes Twenty-five years after the fascist coup, Chile was hailed by some as an economic miracle on the fast track to admission into the North American Free-Trade Ag

Chile on the Road to NAFTA, Accompanied by the National Police Band
1997, 10:46 minutes

Twenty-five years after the fascist coup, Chile was hailed by some as an economic miracle on the fast track to admission into the North American Free-Trade Agreement. But in view of its recent history of vicious political repression, this news provoked skepticism. In this "music video," the police band plays Star Wars while street musicians play popular songs. A gigantic upraised fists turns out to be a Coke billboard, and relatives point to names on the new memorial to victims of the fascist coup.

Seattle: Hidden Histories 1991–95, 13 minutes Compilation of Public Service Announcements, sponsored by the Seattle Arts Commission. One-minute talks by Native Americans in the Seattle area, discussing land, language, religion, and other issues.

Seattle: Hidden Histories
1991–95, 13 minutes

Compilation of Public Service Announcements, sponsored by the Seattle Arts Commission. One-minute talks by Native Americans in the Seattle area, discussing land, language, religion, and other issues.

How Do We Know What Home Looks Like? The Unité d’Habitation of Le Corbusier at Firminy, France 1993, 31:18 minutes A tour of the Unité , concentrating on the wing of apartments closed for ten years and interviews with current residents.

How Do We Know What Home Looks Like? The Unité d’Habitation of Le Corbusier at Firminy, France
1993, 31:18 minutes

A tour of the Unité, concentrating on the wing of apartments closed for ten years and interviews with current residents.

The Garden Spot of the World: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in Traffic, Transit, and Flow 1993, 19:24 minutes This tape is the video element of an installation with computer animation, maps, books, photographs, and text handout. A tour of the history and

The Garden Spot of the World: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in Traffic, Transit, and Flow
1993, 19:24 minutes

This tape is the video element of an installation with computer animation, maps, books, photographs, and text handout. A tour of the history and toxic hazards in the artist's home community in Brooklyn, New York.

In The Place of the Public: Airport Series 1993, 4 hours An exploration of the system of air travel and its associated spaces, primarily the airport terminal, as the quintessential space of postmodern life, with texts circumscribing Western cultu

In The Place of the Public: Airport Series
1993, 4 hours

An exploration of the system of air travel and its associated spaces, primarily the airport terminal, as the quintessential space of postmodern life, with texts circumscribing Western cultures, traditional landmarks, and structures by which it has constructed physical and social space.

Born to be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads The Strange Case of Baby $/M 1988, 35:20 minutes Examines the notorious "Baby S/M" case of "surrogate motherhood," in which a birth mother tried to retain her child. The artist assumes the roles of the various

Born to be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads The Strange Case of Baby $/M
1988, 35:20 minutes

Examines the notorious "Baby S/M" case of "surrogate motherhood," in which a birth mother tried to retain her child. The artist assumes the roles of the various participants, demonstrating how systems of class and gender are played out on the body of the woman. Produced by Paper Tiger Television.

If it's too bad to be true, it could be DISINFORMATION 1985, 16:26 minutes Drawn from a New York Times  article associated with the MIG story that is the primary new subject of this work. The condition of the randomly erased image provides

If it's too bad to be true, it could be DISINFORMATION
1985, 16:26 minutes

Drawn from a New York Times article associated with the MIG story that is the primary new subject of this work. The condition of the randomly erased image provides a formal analogue for the role of broadcast television in governmental disinformation and, most particularly, its banally hypnotic, systematic quality.

Fascination with the (Game of the) Exploding (Historical) Hollow Leg installation tape 1983, 58:16 minutes A simulated war room with altered maps, nuclear weapons, descriptive material, recruitment posters, military clothing, a slideshow of U.S.

Fascination with the (Game of the) Exploding (Historical) Hollow Leg
installation tape
1983, 58:16 minutes

A simulated war room with altered maps, nuclear weapons, descriptive material, recruitment posters, military clothing, a slideshow of U.S. and European protest marches and posters, giant newspaper collages, a video loop, an audio tour of North American Radar Air Defense, a library of books on war, and more—all topped by two giant cargo parachutes.

A Simple Case for Torture, or How to Sleep at Night 1983, 62 minutes Identifies the totalitarian implications of an argument for torture under certain circumstances, as it appears in the pages of Newsweek  magazine. Voiceover analyses and a

A Simple Case for Torture, or How to Sleep at Night
1983, 62 minutes

Identifies the totalitarian implications of an argument for torture under certain circumstances, as it appears in the pages of Newsweek magazine. Voiceover analyses and a shuffling of news articles, on geopolitical and domestic subjects, implicate the U.S. government in the support of regimes, which systematically use torture. Despite its overwhelming barrages, the press is forced to disgorge the facts concealed by its own complicity with repression, by being read against the grain. 

Martha Rosler Reads “Vogue”: wishing, dreaming, winning, spending 1982, 25:22 minutes A live performance on a public-access cable program in New York deconstructing the messages in Vogue and its advertising. Looks at the institutional slants of t

Martha Rosler Reads “Vogue”: wishing, dreaming, winning, spending
1982, 25:22 minutes

A live performance on a public-access cable program in New York deconstructing the messages in Vogue and its advertising. Looks at the institutional slants of the magazine industry and the fashion industry's reliance on sweatshops. Produced by Paper Tiger Television.

Watchwords of the Eighties 1981-82, 62 minutes A recording of a performance at documenta 7 (Kassel, Germany), recorded at Mercer Union (Toronto). In the video, a silhouetted figure of ambiguous identity, in street gear and carrying a giant boom b

Watchwords of the Eighties
1981-82, 62 minutes

A recording of a performance at documenta 7 (Kassel, Germany), recorded at Mercer Union (Toronto). In the video, a silhouetted figure of ambiguous identity, in street gear and carrying a giant boom box, scrawls messages of resistance on projected slides of Reaganist imagery and on an annotated map of Central and Latin America.

Secrets from the Street: No Disclosure 1980, 12:27 minutes A look at the intersection of cultures and classes in the streets of San Francisco's Mission District, whose stores and restaurants, and the flamboyant Low Rider car culture, attract tour

Secrets from the Street: No Disclosure
1980, 12:27 minutes

A look at the intersection of cultures and classes in the streets of San Francisco's Mission District, whose stores and restaurants, and the flamboyant Low Rider car culture, attract tourists. Made for an exhibition held jointly at San Francisco's City Hall and its Museum of Modern Art, the videotape argues that accounts of cultural life, which omit the question of social power, are mythical. The real secret is the obscured relations of economic and political domination. 

Domination and the Everyday 1978, 32:07 minutes An "artist-mother's This Is Your Life," this fractured barrage is an inquiry into the relation between the corporation, the media, the state, and the family. As a woman feeds her small son, a radio

Domination and the Everyday
1978, 32:07 minutes

An "artist-mother's This Is Your Life," this fractured barrage is an inquiry into the relation between the corporation, the media, the state, and the family. As a woman feeds her small son, a radio host interviews an art dealer. Family photos and ads are juxtaposed with a written crawl text, based on Frankfurt School analyses, comparing life in Chile with life in the United States.

Traveling Garage Sale 1977, 31:01 minutes Documentation of Rosler’s installation and performance in which a garage sale of items including clothing, letters, papers, and artworks, is held at the garage associated with a San Francisco art gallery.

Traveling Garage Sale
1977, 31:01 minutes

Documentation of Rosler’s installation and performance in which a garage sale of items including clothing, letters, papers, and artworks, is held at the garage associated with a San Francisco art gallery. With an audiotape "meditation" on the garage sale as a capsule image of domestic life in Southern California.

Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained 1977, 39:20 minutes An "opera in three acts." The first is the part-by-part measurement of a woman by men in white coats, who record her measurements while a chorus of women produce musical tones in

Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained
1977, 39:20 minutes

An "opera in three acts." The first is the part-by-part measurement of a woman by men in white coats, who record her measurements while a chorus of women produce musical tones in response. A voiceover outlines the processes of internalization by which women and Others are socially constructed. In the second act, a woman breaks eggs into a bowl. In the third act, photos of women and children being measured are accompanied by a litany of crimes against women.

From the PTA, the High School, and the City of Del Mar 1977, 7 minutes An exploration of the contents of a Christmas charity basket provided to a mother and child by a wealthy seaside community.

From the PTA, the High School, and the City of Del Mar
1977, 7 minutes

An exploration of the contents of a Christmas charity basket provided to a mother and child by a wealthy seaside community.

The East Is Red, the West Is Bending 1977, 20 minutes A madly literal reading of a booklet for the new electric wok that instructs the users on how to transform themselves into connoisseurs of exotic foreign cuisines. 

The East Is Red, the West Is Bending
1977, 20 minutes

A madly literal reading of a booklet for the new electric wok that instructs the users on how to transform themselves into connoisseurs of exotic foreign cuisines. 

Losing: A Conversation with the Parents 1977, 18:39 minutes A mock "home Q&A" interview with the parents of a girl who has starved herself to death. Unlike in the magazine interviews on which this work is based, the discussion between the par

Losing: A Conversation with the Parents
1977, 18:39 minutes

A mock "home Q&A" interview with the parents of a girl who has starved herself to death. Unlike in the magazine interviews on which this work is based, the discussion between the parents strays into world hunger and political power.

Semiotics of the Kitchen 1975, 6:09 minutes An unsmiling woman, the antithesis of the perfect TV housewife, demonstrates some of the hand tools of the kitchen, replacing their domesticated "meaning" with an alphabetic lexicon of rage and frustrat

Semiotics of the Kitchen
1975, 6:09 minutes

An unsmiling woman, the antithesis of the perfect TV housewife, demonstrates some of the hand tools of the kitchen, replacing their domesticated "meaning" with an alphabetic lexicon of rage and frustration. These securely understood signs of domestic industry are redefined by the artist's gestures as vehicles of violence or instruments of mad music.

A Budding Gourmet 1974, 17 minutes A silhouetted woman describes her efforts to improve herself and her family through gourmet cooking; interspersed with slides of want and plenty, of producers and consumers.

A Budding Gourmet
1974, 17 minutes

A silhouetted woman describes her efforts to improve herself and her family through gourmet cooking; interspersed with slides of want and plenty, of producers and consumers.

Many of these works are available through Martha Rosler’s video distributors; for those that are not, please contact us through the studio or via the appropriate gallery.