Booby Trap, from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home

Martha Rosler, Booby Trap, from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home, ca. 1967-1972, printed 2018, inkjet print, overall: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Norbert Hornstein and Amy Weinberg and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2021.7.9, Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York © Martha Rosler

Artwork Details

Title: Booby Trap, from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home
Artist: Martha Rosler
Date: ca. 1967-1972, printed 2018
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: overall: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Copyright: Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York © Martha Rosler
Credit Line: Gift of Norbert Hornstein and Amy Weinberg and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums Description: inkjet print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Architecture — vehicle — automobile
Landscape
Object Number: 2021.7.9
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2021.7.9

Artwork Description

House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home addresses the subject of gender as it confronts the effects of war and militarism. Collaged from advertising and photojournalistic images cut from newspapers and magazines, the artworks in this series juxtapose the "feminine" realm of domestic life with the "manly" business of waging war.

When Martha Rosler created these works, the US war in Vietnam was rapidly escalating. She observed that news images of the war often reinforced the impression that it was taking place "very far away, in a place we couldn't imagine." She crafted her photomontages to collapse the distance between home front and war front, essentially "bringing the war home." In the artist's words, "We are not 'here' and 'there.' We are all one, and that is crucial."