After the Her Campus at Pace visit to the Museum of Sex on Feb. 10, I was captivated by a specific exhibition currently on view, titled “The Pink Bedroom” by artist Portia Munson. Munson is an American artist who specializes in “a range of mediums including photography, painting, sculpture, and installation,” featuring themes of feminism and environmentalism. I had the wonderful opportunity to have a conversation with her about “The Pink Bedroom,” as well as pick her brain on topics like femininity, consumerism, and the implications of the color pink.
When asked about her background as an artist, Munson states that she has always been one. Always creating and taking all of the art classes she could throughout high school, she received her BFA and MFA as an adult, while concentrating mainly on painting as a medium. It was in grad school at Rutgers University that she first became curious about the color pink, and began collecting any items she could sporting the color to use as painting subjects. She started to ask questions like, “Why am I as a woman associated with this color?” and “Why are these types of products always marketed to women and girls?” What started as just painting subjects quickly became more of a collection of items with greater meaning when presented all together. Another shift in Munson’s perspective on color began when she had her first child, a little boy. The parameters of how his gender was discussed, and the color blue, for example, stood out in comparison. Blue can have a multitude of associations, such as, “the ocean and nature, or cleanliness,” but pink has historically been put in one very small, feminine box. Because of her years of reflection and research, I asked about what attributes she would give to the color, and in her perspective, it is always a “female-identifying color that represents beauty and hygiene, and there has been a shift in shade popularity in recent years,” from more passive pastels in the past to stronger and deeper tones in the present.
The majority of my conversation with Munson centered around her exhibition, “The Pink Bedroom,” and she gave me such an interesting inside perspective on the piece. The scent that can be found in the room was custom designed by a perfumer, and the music playing was created by Munson herself, “4-5 different music boxes played all together, and then slowed down,” to create a unique but familiar tune. Speaking to the bizarre mixture of both adolescent and adult objects in the space, it’s a reflection of the culture in every way, even at its ugliest. “Our stuff defines who we are” and creates the world around us. So when confronted with just how fetishized the commercialization of women’s items and media are, it should be a space that provokes emotion, good or bad. This is exactly the type of reaction from an audience that Munson desires as an artist. I was also curious to know if “The Pink Bedroom” can ever be truly finished in her eyes, as it has been labeled as ongoing since 1994. To Munson, having the freedom to collect and continue to add to the project is important to her, but it also allows it to become a time capsule of sorts. With how regularly we see our culture as consumers changing, the products that we interact with change with us and reflect who we are.
My final question for Portia Munson might be considered a cliché one, but important nonetheless: what advice would you give to college-aged women like the ones in Her Campus? Her answer was a perfect one. Firstly, following your passions and interests no matter what they are is the best thing you could possibly do, as “the most important audience is yourself.” And lastly, the world as we know it is “made up,” so we never have to accept what is given to us as our fate. We are free to create the world for ourselves that we want to see, just like we do in our art and expression. To support Portia Munson and follow her work, she is most active on Instagram, @portiamunson, and is represented by PPOW Gallery here in New York City.