Women House, the exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris (photo)

Published by Elodie D. · Photos by Elodie D. · Published on 25 October 2017 at 16h32 · Updated on 25 October 2017 at 16h40

If you are looking for a Girl Power exhibition, don’t miss Women House displayed from October 20, 2017 to January 28, 2018 at the Monnaie de Paris. Covering over 1000sqm, 40 female artists from the 20th and 19th centuries express what – according to them – feelings of a woman in the domestic space are like. Sometimes like a safe cocoon, workplace or even prison, women finally describe the story of women in their interiors, from the desperate housewife to the modern woman!

The Women House exhibition is a lovely exhibition displayed at the Monnaie de Paris and produced in partnership with the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

This exhibition is called after “WomanHouse”, Myriam Shapiro and Judy Chicago’s project (California Institutes of the Arts, 1972). These two heads of the Feminist Art Program didn’t have a proper place to teach courses and decided to take over a house before its destruction and make it a women “house” where each artist could take over a room.

France had to wait for several years to see feminist art projects: people saw it as a violent theory, a theory about the “house-wife”. According to Louise Bourgeois and then Niki de Saint-Phalle, a woman would be absorbed by her home, becoming the protector and the support of her whole family to the cost of her comfort and her own safety.

Also, seven years later, the Monnaie de Paris, the Monnaie de Paris offers us to understand this delicate subject: the story of the woman in her house. For this exhibition, 40 female artists are highlighted to talk about eight themes in a girl power atmosphere.

As soon as you’re in, you face the questions about the place of the woman in the society of the 50’s, sometimes woman-object, sometimes housewife, according men’s schedule.

Women House à la Monnaie de Paris

The exhibition is about women unease at home, these desperate housewives locked up in a house and who find shelter in a bedroom… So much that walls are “impregnated of their creative strength” and the whole house becomes woman.

Women House à la Monnaie de Paris - Rachel Whiteread, Modern Chess Set, 2005

Women House à la Monnaie de Paris

In the last rooms, women dream of their homes… A mobile home with a whirlpool bath, a doll house.

Women House à la Monnaie de Paris

And outside, a Nana Maison by Niki de Saint-Phalle invites us to walk into mum’s protective cocoon.

Women House à la Monnaie de Paris - Niki de Saint-Phalle, Nana-Maison II, 1966

After this Parisian exhibition, Women House will be displayed at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. from March to May 2018.

Practical information:
Women House, the exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris
From October 20, 2017 to January 28, 2018
Venue: Monnaie de Paris, 11 quai de Conti, 75006 Paris
Opening hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday
Rates: €12, €8 for young people and late-night opening, free for people under 18, unemployed persons and handicapped persons