Playing at Home: The House in Contemporary Art

Description

Playing at Home explores the different ways in which artists have engaged with this popular everyday theme - from 'broken homes' to haunted houses, doll's houses, mobile homes and greenhouses. The book considers how issues of gender, identity, class and place can overlap and interact in our relationships with 'home', and how certain artworks disturb our comfortable ideas of what it means to be 'at home'.

Gill Perry is Professor of Art History at the Open University, uk. Her books include Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-garde (1995), Spectacular Flirtations: Viewing the Actress in British Art and Theatre, 1768 - 1820 (2007) and Themes in Contemporary Art (editor, 2004).

"Gill Perry's fascinating book considers what makes a house a home and why artists are repeatedly drawn to it as a motif. Chapters look at particular types of houses, from those that are haunted to beachside retreats and caravans. Rachel Whiteread's House (1993) and Michael Landy's Semi-Detached (2004) make appearances, and this well-illustrated volume goes on to include a wide range of art from around the globe." -- "Art Quarterly" "Perry has written a scholarly, readable, and timely survey of an important theme. This book reminds us of the capacity of art to deepen our understanding of a contested, contentious concept."-- "Art Newspaper" "A book that has readers demanding more is always praiseworthy, and Gil Perry's ability to read a work of art, and explain it accessibly, while still honouring the artist's often complex intentions, is both rare and valuable. For this alone Playing at Home is welcome."-- "Times Literary Supplement"