The Kitchen and Its Discontents
The Kitchen and Its Discontents
Historically a site of women’s labor, the kitchen has also been the subject of their design research and cultural critique. The Kitchen and Its Discontents brings two influential kitchens from LACMA’s collection into conversation: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s 1926–30 kitchen for the New Frankfurt social housing program in Germany, and Charlotte Perriand and Le Corbusier’s 1948–50 kitchen for L’Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France. These designers applied modern principles of efficiency and modularity to the home, with the aim of improving women’s lives. However, the reality was always more complicated, as revealed in photographs, prints, and advertisements from LACMA’s collection, which examine the everyday messes and simmering tensions in the domestic terrain, depicting the kitchen as a contested space for labor and living. It is presented concurrently with Home of the Future, 1925–1985: Designing Domestic Utopias.
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Generous support provided by Sapna and Joe Dangaran, and Suzanne and Ric Kayne.
All exhibitions at LACMA are underwritten by the LACMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by The David & Meredith Kaplan Foundation, the Blanchard Nesbitt Family, Louise and Brad Edgerton, Edgerton Foundation, Julie Jaffe, Stan and Ann Kroenke, Ezra and Lauren Perlman, The Michael Silver Family, and Marietta Wu and Thomas Yamamoto, with generous annual funding from Mary and Daniel James, Bert Levy Fund, Justin Lubliner, Alfred E. Mann Charities, and Kelsey Lee Offield.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #3, 1977, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection, © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
- Sep 27, 2026–Mar 14, 2027
- Resnick Pavilion
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Generous support provided by Sapna and Joe Dangaran, and Suzanne and Ric Kayne.
All exhibitions at LACMA are underwritten by the LACMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by The David & Meredith Kaplan Foundation, the Blanchard Nesbitt Family, Louise and Brad Edgerton, Edgerton Foundation, Julie Jaffe, Stan and Ann Kroenke, Ezra and Lauren Perlman, The Michael Silver Family, and Marietta Wu and Thomas Yamamoto, with generous annual funding from Mary and Daniel James, Bert Levy Fund, Justin Lubliner, Alfred E. Mann Charities, and Kelsey Lee Offield.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #3, 1977, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection, © 2026 Cindy Sherman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth