The bourdaloue, or chamber pot, is one among 470 objects brought together by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs for its latest exhibition, Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media, which explores changing conceptions of the intimate – what may and must not be seen by the wider world. Chamber pots like this one were used by women in the 18th century, placed under their enormous crinolines so they might discreetly relieve themselves in public. It represents a moment in the strange story of how social morality – and what behaviours it permits – has evolved, particularly how the relationship between private and public life has shifted over the centuries.
The show charts these changes through objects associated with both realms: things which represent bodily intimacies – bath accessories, perfume and makeup, beds and sex toys – but also personal ones – diaries, for instance, and makeshift shelters. Each item intrigues and captivates, representing a point in the array plotting the complex contours of the exhibition’s elusive subject matter.
The word ‘intimacy’ derives from the Latin intus, meaning ‘inside’: it’s a word whose scope can encompass many kinds of interior life – including that of the mind, which, being subtler than what might happen under a crinoline, feels more difficult to decode. As humans, we constantly oscillate between a need for openness and a desire for reserve. It’s polarity to which designers have frequently responded across the decades, as the exhibition reveals in the large central space devoted to furniture. The ‘Living Tower’, designed in 1969 by Verner Panton, celebrates the virtues of social proximity – even, perhaps, promiscuity – by welcoming several people to lie down or sit at different heights in this curvy, multi-level sofa-sculpture. Meanwhile, the instantly recognisable ‘Egg’ chair, dreamed up in 1958 by designer Arne Jacobsen, folds over its occupant, playfully allowing the sitter a degree of separation from the world around them.
Of course, the boundary between private and public was not always approached so breezily. In 19th-century Europe, these spheres were strictly separate – as many paintings of the period attest. Gustave Caillebotte’s Woman at the Window, for instance, is a powerful emblem of the female role as mistress of the house – a realm to which she is a meaningfully confined, the panes akin to bars, while her husband reads the newspaper beside her (and so taps into the wider world). This very gendered societal separation between the two domains dictated that the lady would reign over domestic interior space while the man was free to go about his business. It’s a split in functions that is diminishing, without disappearing completely, in the Europe of today.
Rather than suggesting, however, that the forward march of modernity has served only to tear away those boundaries, the exhibition is also concerned with the newer forms of privacy we have since created. Today, there is no house without a bathroom, but this seemingly essential site of solitude in fact only became established as a separate space fairly recently, with the majority arriving in France only at the end of the 1970s. In this respect, we have a greater degree of modesty than the poor 18th-century users of communal loos; odours and hygiene levels that alarm us now would hardly have bothered our predecessors.
It would be impossible to conclude, of course, without addressing the implications of our digital world: the social networks and surveillance technologies that are transforming our relationship with intimacy, and the very notion of what a ‘private life’ is, with each passing day. The selfies that we generously distribute online ultimately expose us in a manner rarely seen in previous centuries. How can we strike a balance between our dependence on constant connectivity and our desire for freedom? Artists like Ewa Nowak, we discover in the exhibition, have found a solution through obfuscation. Her Incognito (2018) is an anti-facial-recognition mask that protects its wearer from technologies that might identify them. The piece represents a way to take control of our own privacy and preserve our intimate identities: it’s a timely provocation, like the show at large.
‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’ runs until 30 March 2025 at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
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