Artist Renée Stout (Born 1958, Junction City, Kansas; raised Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; active Washington, DC) describes this intricately adorned space as “a magical thing you can’t quite get inside of,” inviting visitors to linger at the threshold and share in her moment of longing.
Renée Stout, Installation of “A Room to Simply, BE” in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution
Renowned for her multimedia practice channeled through a fictional alter ego named Fatima Mayfield—an herbalist and spiritual advisor—Stout transforms this former powder room in the Carnegie Mansion into a rare autobiographical installation, her first of this nature in decades. She embellishes the space with objects she has found and created as she prepares to leave her home of 25 years, a 118-year-old fixer-upper that also served as her studio.
Drawing on African diasporic material culture and touches of glam, some of Stout’s objects incorporate her own hair or the hair of her loved ones, as well as jewels and keepsakes. She imagines an interior where beauty, elegance, and femininity can thrive. Stout also emphasizes that the room’s inhabitant is acutely aware of an ongoing struggle against women’s autonomy and control over their own bodies. In contemplating her state of limbo, Stout carves out this place in the museum to simply be, arranging objects to evoke practices of self-care and self-creation.
This installation is made possible with additional support from Marc Straus Gallery, NYC.