Performance / Installation / Audio

2022
You make a good coffee, you are ready for marriage... Do you want to stop by for a coffee? ...Come on, woman, make us some coffee!


In this work, commissioned by gallery U10 for the exhibition 'Under your gaze', Maja Simišić uses the kitchen as her space and coffee brewing as a method of expression. She puts herself in the position of a housewife who, as a phenomenon has throughout history to this day, been hypersexualized, and at the same time completely sexually repressed. Relying on the theoretical work of Silvia Federici, the artist explores the space between extreme sexualization, (and what is its opposite) as well as the kitchen, which is part of the home that causes positive emotions of pleasure in preparing a delicious meal, but also frustration when someone does not know how to use it. The kitchen carries with it a dichotomy of pleasure and oppression. Those two narratives alternate from second to second in this work. The kitchen is the epicenter of women's existence, and the sentence "A woman's place is in the kitchen" can be heard unironically even today. This is precisely why the artist turns to this haunted space of our female ancestors, and instead of running away from such an outdated and sexist narrative, she places herself in the role of the housewife. This work also problematizes the concept of home, kitchen, and housewife as concepts of private and inaccessible to the view of the outside world and opens the door in which they now become public.

During the performance, the artist is preparing cappuccino and creates choreography with the audio which is Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus. At some point mixed with the classical music, you can hear a crescendo of male orgasm. At the same moment, she is frothing the milk with a hand-manipulated milk foamer culminating until the moment the male voice cums. The milk frother and the movement connected to it show a latent parallel to a real human hand job. Therefore depicting two male pleasures at the same time: making coffee and making him cum, but without him even being there.

Text Bojana Jovanović, curator Jovana Trifuljesko



Full_Performance_Video