Mattress Shoes
- Artist: Birgit Jürgenssen
- Date: 1973
- Medium: Fabric, cork and leather
- Dimensions: object, each: 78 × 250 × 120 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Mattress Shoes” by Birgit Jürgenssen. Created in 1973, the piece blends fabric, cork and leather into a small, shoe‑shaped object that looks like a mattress turned into footwear. Jürgenssen, working in the early 1970s, often explored everyday materials in unexpected ways. The work sits in the On Domesticity room, where the theme of home and daily life is examined. Here the mattress shoe hints at how we repurpose domestic objects, blurring the line between comfort and function. The artist uses soft, pliable materials that echo the tactile feel of a mattress, yet the form is deliberately foot‑like, suggesting walking through home. It invites viewers to rethink the ordinary items that surround us.
See it in person
Mattress Shoes is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
