In Ragnar Kjartansson’s Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy (2018), women and nonbinary singer-guitarists stationed throughout the Guggenheim played cherished songs of love and romance by some of the world’s great songwriters, including Bruce Springsteen, Cat Stevens, and Lil Wayne. However, visitors soon discovered that these tracks harbor a dark side: mostly written by men about women, the featured songs gently—and not so gently—revealed how popular culture is shaped by chauvinism, objectification, and gender violence.
Performing these songs on repeat for hours at a time, the musicians personally bore the emotional and physical burden of the lyrics’ content. Yet they also joined in a collective ritual that imagined new possibilities for endurance, reclamation, and even joy. At once a celebration of pop music and a charged environment of critique, Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy created a space where contradictions—between individual and group, oppression and liberation, rhythm and chaos—existed together within a community of collaboration and mutual support.
Originally commissioned by C Project and curated by Tom Eccles, the piece premiered at the Women’s Building, San Francisco, in 2018.
Marissa Deitz 