Csilla Klenyánszki’s art series House/Hold is a funny exploration of woman’s position in western society.
Oscar Wild said: “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. But, for me, to truly connect to art I need to see a piece of life in it. It can be emotions, beauty or humor, and sometimes even the truth. What I love about Csilla Klenyánszki’s work is that it questions the society and woman’s position in it. Her art reflects on serious situations of life with a dose of humor and playfulness.
The nature of the work is highly playful and experimental, but the approach is rather analytic.
Csilla Klenyánszki is a Hungarian artist based in Amsterdam. Her achievements are numerous, but her work speaks for itself. I came across her series called House/Hold and it really resonated with me. With the focus on gender and time, this series explores women’s position in western society. In a playful way, it highlights a housework gap between genders. Even in a developed country like the Netherlands, where the artist is based, women spend on an average 9 hours more on housework than men (according to the Dutch Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau – SCP).
With domestic chores and childcare being primarily their responsibility, women have far less leisure time than men. The survey has also found that time spent on leisure has risen for men and dropped for women since 2000. What the artist suggest as an ironic solution to this problem is to multitask and combine housework with yoga. House/Hold will make you laugh, but will also make you think. In this fast-paced world, it’s hard keeping up with everything even without being disadvantaged by your gender. So, let’s hope that projects like this will remind us, girls, to slow down and the boys to do their part. Because no matter how much progress has already been made there is still a long way to go in achieving equality.
For more about the artist visit her website.
