British artist Cathie Pilkington has created a new exhibition, 'Housekeeper,' at London's Freud Museum. The installation features sculptural interventions placed among Sigmund Freud's preserved study and home, channeling the spirit of the family's long-serving housekeeper, Paula Fichtl, as a 'poltergeist' subtly disrupting the order of Freud's antiquities and inserting subversive, uncanny figures.
The exhibition continues the museum's long-standing policy of inviting contemporary artists to respond to its unique, evocative environment. Pilkington's work highlights a previously overlooked domestic figure, using the concept of a ghostly caretaker to interrogate themes of memory, domestic labor, and the psychological unease embedded in Freud's own collection, joining a notable lineage of artists like Sophie Calle and Sarah Lucas who have created interventions at the site.