{"data":{"id":"3786","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":3786,"topgoose_id":942,"tms_id":3786,"display_name":"Martha Rosler","sort_name":"Rosler Martha","display_date":"1943–","begin_date":"1943","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eThe catalyst for \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/8304\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Bowery in two\ninadequate descriptive systems\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, Martha\nRosler recalled, was a walk in the area of\nlower Manhattan named in the work’s\ntitle. A keen investigator of the uses and\nabuses of documentary photography,\nRosler thought of the ubiquitous genre of\nphotographs that captured the downtrodden\nneighborhood’s homeless and alcoholic\ndenizens, and was struck, she said, by “how\ninadequate the photos were to convey\nanything about the life there or, even more\nimportant, the social position of the\nmen on that street and the circumstances\nthat put them there.” To dramatize this\ndeficiency, Rosler paired two kinds of\nrepresentation, or “descriptive systems,”\nin this work: photography, in the form\nof black-and-white pictures of unpeopled\nBowery storefronts, and language, in\nimages of cards typewritten with assorted\nsynonyms for drunkenness. That neither\na photograph of a vacant doorway nor a\nword such as “sloshed” can comprehensively\ncommunicate lived experience is Rosler’s\npoint, and their juxtaposition serves to\nexpose the limits and fault lines in\nrepresentative modes that are often\nassumed to be authoritative and transparent.\nIn her words, Rosler intended to\n“look at the setting and leave the viewer\nto reimagine the people within.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plight of the disenfranchised\nhas remained an abiding concern\nfor Rosler, a multidisciplinary artist whose\nother recurrent themes include the\nportrayal of women, the culture of public\nspace, and the ideology of modern warfare.\nHer photographs, videos, installations,\nperformances, and writings are united by\ntheir rigorous consideration of the\npolitics of representation: how, and by whom,\nare contemporary images produced,\nreceived, disseminated, and interpreted?\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500097623","wikidata_id":"Q1903090","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:57:15.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-10T07:03:28.423-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/3786/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/3786/exhibitions"}}}}