A ROOM TO SIMPLY, BE

ABOUT THE INSTALLATION

RENÉE STOUT
BORN 1958, JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS; ACTIVE WASHINGTON, DC

Artist Renée Stout describes this intimately adorned space as “a magical thing you can’t quite get inside of.” Viewers stand at the threshold but are unable to enter. This former powder room in the Carnegie Mansion holds objects Stout found and created as she transitions out of her home of 25 years—a 118-year-old fixer-upper that also served as her studio. For Stout, this interior is meant to conjure elegance and femininity, “while also revealing that its inhabitant is not living in a privileged bubble but is fully aware that a war is currently being waged against women’s autonomy and dominion over the space within their own bodies.” As she contemplates states of personal and political limbo, Stout carves out a space in the museum to simply be, carefully arranging objects to evoke practices of self-care and self-creation.

visual description

We are outside an open doorway; unable to enter the adorned interior due to a single piece of plexiglass. But as we peer in, we see an intimate room. The windowless room, formerly a powder room, is small, no larger than a closet, with the walls and flooring painted in a charcoal gray color. In the center of the room is a patterned area rug with a cream-colored armchair and round gilded accent table. The chair provides seating for a heart shaped pillow and white fur cushion. The small, gilded table displays a glass tiara sitting on a silky green pillow. The tiara is comprised of bent branches with crystal blooms. 

Behind the chair is a dark wooden table with jars and bottles placed around a black object, resembling a radio, entitled “Spirit Selector.”. The jars and bottles appear to hold small specimens, like a single seahorse or collection of seeds, cast inside the glass vessels. Some of the vessels are opaque. On either side of the side table are two mixed-media sculptures with long vertical bases that flower into bulbous textured orbs and topped with a figure.  

Hung above the long side table is a framed picture of a nebula with a single brown eye protruding from the cosmic dust.

Acknowledgements

This installation is made possible with additional support from Marc Straus Gallery, NYC.