I was at a talk Judy Chicago gave at the Brooklyn Museum. She kicked out a young woman out of the auditorium who had a small child making very minimal noise in the back row. I met the woman outside. She was crying and told me she loved Chicago and could not get a babysitter.
It is also my understanding that Chicago did not pay nor aknowledge any of the women who worked on the dinner party.
Cruelly toward women with kids. Free women's labor. That's not what I want from my feminism. (BTW, I'm a woman, Jim isn't my name).
56
a member of my family, sue severin, was one of the workers on the dinner party. she was not paid; she did not want to be paid. she wanted to contribute to what she felt was a major piece of political art.
i believe that she and the others were acknowledged in a listing of contributors to the piece.
7
Jim, great artists don't have to be nice people. And it says in the article that all 400 women who worked on the piece were volunteer.
5
I also would find it a disrespectful for anyone to bring a crying child into *any* lecture delivered to people in a formal setting. I have severe ADHD and find such noise that may be "minimal" to you as extremely disruptive for me.
As for your "understanding" that Chicago did not pay nor acknowledge the women who worked on the Dinner Party -- it would be wise to do a little research and fact checking first before believing slander and repeating it in published form as libel.
A simple foray into even Wiki reports that *volunteers* contributed to the making of the piece, and cites as well the numbers of artisans who make contributions. For the full background story of the creation of "Dinner Party," to find info about the many skilled artisans involved -- which Chicago in fact acknowledged in the historical record *decades ago* in her texts --
See:
1. "The Dinner Party: A Symbol of our Heritage," by Judy Chicago Published 1979
2. "Embroidering Our Heritage: The Dinner Party Needlework," by Judy Chicago, 1980
3. "The Complete Dinner Party : 2 paperback books in slipcase Paperback – 1979
4. Lippard, Lucy. "Judy Chicago's Dinner Party". Art in America 68 (April 1980): 114–126.
by Judy Chicago (Author), Susan Hill (Author)
13
Betsy Ross didn't have a place at The Dinner Party, am I right?
1
Put the debate about art or kitsch or feminist propaganda aside, Judy Chicago is a survivor, and everyone ought to love a survivor. This article brings back memories, and the only people who look silly are Judy's smug early critics.
35
Yech...just dragging out the modernist sacred cows for more deification and hagiography. It is supremely ironic that modernist art was born of temporal and and iconoclastic values. So what did they do now? Memorialize and idolize their sacred cows. Modernists are such hypocrites. They destroyed the Academy...to become the Academy.
4
Judy Chicago was our Hero, our Muse, the One whose Art spoke our reality, whose Art gave credence to the Great Women we knew about. Back in the 1970's, her Dinner Party was cherished by us. We knew its significance to our lives, we knew that her Art spoke for us. And we didn't care what the greater world thought. We still don't. We are the grandmothers of the young women now suddenly finding their voices, their strength, their pride. We are the women who marched in Women Unite Take Back the NIght events, who put our bodies on the line for Women's and Lesbian Rights.
I knew in my 20's that the world is stacked against ALL women, but especially women of color.
The men who engage in sexual harassment should continue to be shamed and fired from their jobs. They deserve only our utmost contempt. Our society, hell, all societies allow men to do to women what we wouldn't allow anyone to do to our dogs.
So thank you for this long overdue piece which recognizes Judy Chicago for the groundbreaking, gifted genius she is. If Andy Warhol could gain fame and recognition for painting soup cans and "pop" art and be in MOMA, why is Judy Chicago relegated to the National Museum of Women in the Arts??? Judy Chicago is not just a "women's" artist, rather, she is a Genius for All of Humanity. Just as Women's Rights are not just about women, rather, they are Human Rights.
The sooner men "get" this, the better off we will all be.
75
Jeff Koons is kitsch masquerading as art. John Currin is pure technique and bile pretending to be important. Judy Chicago said something important about how women of accomplishment are marginalized. She made art that masquerades as kitsch and she let her symbols speak louder than technique. To denigrate her work is to prove her point.
57
Representing vaginas and breasts is not a way to assert women's identity. It only reinforces male voyeurism. The Guerrilla Girls ask if women need to be nude to get into a museum since 85% of the nudes are female and only 5% are women artists. No. Instead women should assert in art their intellectual excellence as that equal to men. Offering more bodies to the male gaze is not progress.
8
Has anyone spent time watching folks actually engage the Dinner Party?
Most people just look at the wall card, look at a few plates, see the gimmick and move on. The great women whose coattails Chicago rides on deserve much better. But we'll salute anything if the politics is correct.
8
In the list of hashtags that 2018 Dinner Party would produce, #BeyondCisterhood is sadly missing. The Dinner Party is an important work, true--but it should be seen as a work solidly rooted in second-wave feminism, in which the achievements of women of color are only explored in relationship to their white peers, Sojourner Truth is stripped of her sexuality, and women are narrowed down to their vaginas, or completely ignored if they don't have them. Does the Dinner Party bring to light the narratives of countless forgotten women? Yes, and it should be celebrated for that. But we shouldn't forget that those women represent a very narrow view of what it means to be a woman, and it has a historical context that can't be ignored while viewing it. This piece does a disservice to women everywhere by only mentioning modern-day critiques of the Dinner Party in a few solitary sentences, and making it seem that you can't be feminist and dislike the Dinner Party.
4
One of the great treasures of American art
18
A large and beautiful needlework piece called “The Crowning” from Judy Chicago’s Birth Project once hung in the lobby of now-closed John B. Franklin Maternity Hospital in Philadelphia. It caused a stir at first, but people quickly came to appreciate its beauty and connection to the mission of the hospital. When the hospital closed, the piece found a new home at the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women.
14
She may or not be an important artist, I don't know. I do know that she was very unpleasant to Terry Gross, some years ago.
3
Thank God she has managed to survived the misogyny and hype. I love her craziness and vision.
24
Fun article about an artist who's always been a bit of an inside joke. It takes more than tireless self-promotion to make a good artist, even when that artist belongs to a group that has been and continues to be underrepresented. Sorry, but Judy Chicago is just not a very good artist.
6
I saw the Dinner Party in San Francisco. My friend helped with the set up and was amazed that everyone that helped was acknowledged. The show inspired me to get my MFA.
18
My mother took us to see the Dinner Party in Chicago's Printers Row in 1981. I was 13. She insisted we go, and everything about it - the location, my mother's excitement - I knew that it was something special. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the scale and sheer beauty of each piece, each plate connecting me with the woman it represented. I imagined them sitting at the table dining, drinking, and laughing together. When I was an undergraduate some years later, I met a man at a local hangout one day, and I mentioned that I painted. He was one of those middle-aged hippie guys who hung out, hitting on young, impressionable college women. He asked, "You're not one of those Judy Chicago artists, are you?" I replied that I had seen The Dinner Party and admired her work very much. His expression immediately turned stony, and he stared straight ahead and ignored me - a cold erasure of my existence. Our conversation ended there but has stuck with me always. The sexism of the leftist men of that era. It only deepened my appreciation for Chicago. The Dinner Party has had a special place in my heart ever since.
47
For me, it's not so much about the work (it's incredible in its technique and depth) but about the dedication to her intellect that she expresses through her art.
14
By happenstance I happened to attend a docent led tour in SF MOMA which has a couple of Judy Chicago's works. I am not an art person so I appreciate the insight by both the docent and this article. I look forward to seeing that table in Brooklyn and grabbing a piece of Junior's Cheesecake after I leave.
6
in 1980, I was taking my first women's studies class at the University of Akron. Our professor had been to San Francisco to see The Dinner Party, and we spent half of our semester lovingly examining each place setting, looking at the tiles, researching it. It was my first experience with feminist art. I have never forgotten The Dinner Party. I'm glad that it's finally getting its due. I can't wait to go see it "in person" at the Brooklyn Museum in June. What a wonderful profile of an amazing artist. Graziè
19
I remember seeing The Dinner Party in Chicago, so long ago. I’ve had the opportunity to also see other great works of art, and I found this piece to be as unique and important as many others. I can still remember the amazement i felt at seeing something so very different and compelling.
20
I saw "The Dinner Party" when it was in San Francisco and I was in graduate school at Berkeley. I was in awe in the presence of the workof the work, which generated great strength, dignity, and power. The artistry, scholarship, and craftsmanship were/are unquestionable.
While I am not familiar with any of her subsequent work, "The Dinner Party" is the work of an important artist. I am glad to see the work get a permanent home.
14
Judy Chicago is a brave, groundbreaking feminist artist. Her work is a gift to all of us.
19
Judy, I remember...
The Dinner Party mattered.
Do you remember the book of sketches of woman's vulvas? And there was also that book of photographs of women revealing their mastectomies.
All these impressions from the 70's blur and become a background for who I am today.
The reaching, stretching creativity. Bravery. Works of art that made a difference, whose actualization brought into form, into matter, new ways of imagining a woman's life.
My life.
23
A recent visit to the Dinner Party was underwhelming.
The work feels dated.
The Prisma Pencil drawings are amazing.
Art must transcend time and material whoever makes it.
2
I love Judy Chicago. She is an inspiration and extremely relevant right now.
12
Never saw any of these in person except for the Birth Project, in Philadelphia some time in the mid-80s. The Birth Project affected me tremendously. I remember that the Philadelphia Inquirer trashed it, and I wrote a letter to the editor trying to point out the reviewer's sexism. I don't recall for sure but I don't think they printed it. It is so very interesting to think how differently the same work would be received if presented originally today. Judy Chicago is phenomenal.
12
Art and politics never mix well. Think of all the great artists and their greatest works. Can you think of anything that reflects the politics of the age as relevant to you today as great art? Picasso's La Guernica or Goya's Third of May paintings, for example. We are told to believe these are great works of art because of their political content, when nothing could be further from the truth. Those work are only famous because the artists were famous for doing hundreds of other non-political paintings, and the art exists only within its form and style, not any socio-political context.
4
In ’73 or so Judy Chicago showed her paintings, large flower pictures, in a Portland, OR gallery. I was an art student at Reed, which at the time, in arts education, was a literal Gila Bend. (ref. the Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover). I was hungry for art meat and knew about Chicago’s work, was a fan of the Hairy Who, at age 20 got downtown to see her paintings. Entering the gallery I found Chicago alone seated on a chair. Unexpected. I sat down to talk with her about her paintings - which brought up O’Keefe but tighter in curve and color. Judy seemed shy - I surely was. We had a half hour of quiet conversation for which I, college junior, felt grateful. When the Dinner Party came out, it was a trumpet blast, widely published, though I didn’t see it until years later. The women’s history, the sexual iconography, the “chicago style” vibratto engaged me and aroused my interest. Some of her later work, like the “angry men” series seemed absorbed in stridency, But the energy of that early work, the urgency and information of her message - and her sensitivity to color, both subtle and garish captivated me.
15
I want to think "feminist art" is art along the same lines as any other branch of our cultural tree, but in fact it is not.
We are, as we have been, exploited by our own fears and ignorance. Physical might, clearly an advantage men share, has ruled societies since the first club was wielded and only now after many thousands of years are women's voices joining to introduce reason based on fact.
Men still rule but only by virtue of force and while this is enough for the time being the fact remains we must change our approach to what we as men consider reality and what in fact exists.
If we do not listen to and accept the truth as women know it we will destroy ourselves and our planet.
7
I haven't thought about Judy Chicago in decades, but I'm so glad to read this piece, which gives me a broader understanding of her work beyond the Dinner Party. This kind of cultural coverage is an important part of what makes reading the NYTimes interesting (though often I find that the FT does a better job of it). Keep it up!
8
Her airbrushed car hoods, when shown in the "Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980" exhibition at the Getty, really stood out from the crowd. And I agree with the writer of this article, over time her work has gained strength through its directness, simplicity, and explicitness of message.
7
Love her work, but..... Note that Elizabeth Sackler, heir to the fortune of her family that made tainted profits off of oxycontin, donated Dinner Party to the Brooklyn Museum. So sad that art museums cannot seem to make it without such donors.
See earlier NYT article on the ethics of museums taking donations from Purdue Pharma/Sackler Family among others. The Sackler family is now on the Forbes list due to their incredible profits off of painkillers and the epidemic that has caused more deaths than the Viet Nam War.
3
I had never even heard of an artwork known as Dinner Party. After catching a glimpse of it here, it shall stay that way. As long as she had a good time making it and it filled a need at the time she did is what matters most anyway.
1
Judy Chicago is also a poet. We have included her poem "Merger" in every one of our family's milestone celebrations. When our sons were growing up, we read it every Friday night as we lit our Shabbat candles. It is beautiful, especially when read by many alternating voices. It gives us hope.
Merger by Judy Chicago
And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.
20
For a guy who didn't know much about her work, I'm sincerely grateful for this fantastic profile and the chance to understand something more interesting than the daily reminders of male prejudice in our society; the perspective of an artist on what that feels like, or what it makes them think, and the priceless gift creativity plays in provoking new conversations and ideas. It seems to me, the more people are exploring her work, the more they are recognizing she had to say (and much of it hyper-relative today as the article points out. Go Judy, thanks for the unexpected inspiration and discovering you a little late.
12
Inspiration. Intelligence. Courage. Stamina. Work. Results. Inspiration.
7
Thank you for this wonderful update on Judy Chicago. She was instrumental in drawing attention to what used to be called "women's art." Vilified by many, who deemed it craft and not art, so not worthy of being permanently displayed in an art museum, The Dinner Party traveled the country, and I, my husband, and two young children were fortunate to see it at the University of Houston, Clearwater, in 1979 or 1980, where it was in temporary residence. We spent an incredible amount of time in the black-walled room, stunned by the magnificent needlework, china painting, and place settings, each devoted to a historical--and often forgotten or defiant--woman, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary. The triangular shape of the table encouraged you to get up close and spend as much time as you liked examining the tribute to each woman. Then you would scrutinize the floor inside the triangular table, upon which the names of more prominent women were memorialized. My entire family was fascinated and, through this exhibit, my husband and I gave our children a lesson on women's history that day. I bought the large poster, which has a place of honor in my home, and the book Through the Flower, which I cherish. I would like to take exception to a criticism of one of your other commentators, who claims that Judy Chicago did not acknowledge the many women and men artists who contributed to the work. She certainly did that in her book.
14
I was working in my university's art gallery in 2000, when we had a Judy Chicago retrospective. I had many hours alone to contemplate The Dinner Party and The Birth Project. I wasn't aware she was critically rejected, as The DP had been included in my major art history textbooks. I remember distinctly not liking Judy Chicago's aesthetic style. The 'kitsch' (many onlookers have aptly described), and her generation of feminism felt dated and I failed to identify with it. I believed the artist was overly lionized for her one-off major work. Now that I have read the NYT piece this may have been overly harsh. I'm glad The DP has found a home at BAM.
NYT, casting Judy Chicago as an art world reject-victim of male hegemony feels disingenuous. Art history is full of artists whose recognition came posthumously (Gauguin, Modigliani, Van Gough, Basquiat etc). Despite the oppression of women, there is a lineage of Euro-American female artists before Judy Chicago (see Wiki's list of 20th can female artists for a quickie). Are there enough? No! Are there enough in museums? Obviously not. Does male patriarchy still rule the art world? Yup. Is the work great? Time will tell. Is the work meaningful? That depends on the viewer (not a critic).
3
If you are interested in seeing how "The Dinner Party" art was made, there is a wonderful 1980 documentary film about it titled "Right Out of History: The Making of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party"
8
Relevant to who, surely not me nor many around here.
9
Of course not, you are in Tennessee! You know this is a New York paper, and so many readers are interested in art.
5
Not all critics ignored Judy’s work; Kurt von Meier, writing in Art International, reviewed her work favorably: https://www.kurtvonmeier.com/avantgarde-sculptor-harold-paris/
5
i always found the Dinner Party filled with cliches and stereotypes. I have never considered it great art. Look at the Rodins down the hallways of the Brooklyn Museum and see the work of a great artist .
18
Thank you, Judy Chicago. I remember reading about The Dinner Party in the New York Times just as I, at 22 years old, was also reading Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, Betty Freidan, Marge Piercy, & discovering my own voice. Your art was a part of my burgeoning feminist sensibility.
72
I became a Judy Chicago fan in the late 80s when I learned about her at art college. To this day I have only seen one piece of hers in person. It infuriated me and my friends back then, that it was fine to see museums filled with works by abusers of women, but god forbid they include work by women, unless it is agreed "safe" by the male community.
I'm glad the world is finally catching up to the fact that women are—gasp!—intelligent and creative people and the world (or at least other women) are yearning to see their work. But it makes me angry that it took all these years for sexist art world to give her her due.
49
Thank you for this article. The Dinner Party is an incredible piece--I have never looked so hard at something and felt so many things about an art installation as I did with this particular one--it is mesmerizing, outrageous, cathartic, beautiful, radical, thoughtful, provocative, expansive, enraging and impossible to walk away from. What a surprise (cough, cough!) that the mostly male art critics didn't "get it" or hated it or labeled it as kitsch when it was first displayed. How typical. How maddening.
Thank you Judy Chicago--for hanging in there and making something so vivid. I look forward to seeing more of her work and I realize I will never forget this most famous effort and desperately hope that I will see it again sometime. More importantly, I hope my daughters can see it with me.
65
I was lucky enough to see the Dinner Party in Chicago in the 1981. I went with my mom from Normal, Il. It was shown in the old Printer's Row, way before it was gentrified.
16
She's the cats meow.
9
Great art is rarely appreciated at its inception because it always requires one to challenge their cultural assumptions and perspective. Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is great art and deserves a prominent place in 21st American moder.n art. Every girl, woman, mother and their brothers and husbands should see it. It's a cultural #MeToo moment to cherish that like all great art also enriches us.
45
It is a cliche to talk about art challenging ones cultural assumptions. For example, walk into any museum of pre 19th century art. Was a painting by Franz Hals challenging any cultural assumptions, even in its era? How about a Rubens or a Rembrandt? A wonderful still life by de Heem? Modern Art historians have brainwashed people into thinking that art must only challenge the intellect instead of tugging at the heart. Don't fall for it.
4
Dinner Party has always been filled with stereotypes and cliches. Really far from being great and fairly ugly in fact.
3
"Relevant once again, she can no longer be ignored."
Just try me.
12
I had the opportunity to see a portion of the Birth Project at a college gallery in 1987 or so. It was impossibly powerful and moving. Chicago has more than earned her place in art and the feminist canon.
25
I saw the Birth Project when it made its debut in Santa Fe--beautiful, astonishing work.
3
Revisiting Judy Chicago's Dinner Party will be a whole new experience after reading this wonderful article. I'm glad Chicago is finally getting the respect she deserves!
29
Still nourishing after all these years.
19
"Rather than look at the work, Hopps literally turned his back on it and started talking with Hamrol and another male artist. (In 1966, it was included in “Primary Structures,” a major Minimalist show at the Jewish Museum.) Years later, she ran into Hopps and he explained that he’d been paralyzed by the fact that her work was better than that of the men in her circle, and he didn’t know how to respond."
So much for the genius of Walter Hopps.
23
Impressive piece.
9
Since the "art world" is male Euro-American dominated, the artists considered important are of Euro-American ethnicity. The women and non-Euro-American artist that the male dominated Euro-American art world stoop to to include are still considered to be lest than stellar.
Because art is viewed through the eyes of a Euro-American male dominated culture and art has become a business not a cultural aesthetic product having no economic value, the notion of valuing art produced by women or non-Euro-American males higher than Euro-American males is unthinkable!
12
It sounds fun. This new viewer enjoys 'The Dinner Party' at a dry distance. A family friend of my parent, the former, a French artist Marcel Duchamp used to poke fun at the Art World, and his placing a mustache on The Mona Lisa, was nearly the cause of irreverence.
Ms. Chicago shows diversity in her work, and it is original. It's a bit much to ask, but if she could invent some postcards, along with a few collages to add to her collection, it would be bliss to be able to send to friends with an artistic eye. Wishing her many pink rainbows for these are not easy pieces to achieve.
8
A woman I was in grad school with back in the mid 70s once told me the most important thing I ever learned about art.
"Art," she said, "can be anything but boring".
Having seen The Dinner Party in situ I must confess, that for me, it did not pass this simple test.
20
I had not known that "The Dinner Party" had such a checkered critical history. I thought it was terrific when it first hit the art news, and that it remained a major piece of innovative art. Ah, the fears of patriarchy: Rauschenburg's "Bed" was important art; "The Dinner Party" was kitsch. I love Chicago's work and spirit, and especially her tenacity. "And yet, she persisted." Thank you Judy.
39
Wonderful to read... lots to think about. Many thanks to judy (& Sasha)
9
I wrote a paper on Le Brun when I was in high school -- it was an assignment for French class. This was in the early 1980's, but I had very socially-aware teachers, and they pushed us to study more than the "dead white male" examples of writers, painters, sculptors, photographers, and other creatives. Studying Le Brun also made me revisit the myths surrounding Marie Antoinette -- a child bride who did a very feminist thing: Supporting a woman painter in an era where it simply was not done.
I also learned to knit and crochet in elementary school -- it was the 1970's, and we were expected to treat our creative pursuits as seriously as our academics.
I shouldn't be surprised that it's taken this long for Chicago to get her due -- but I am glad she has made preserving her legacy a must-do.
And, I'm glad that Le Brun is getting a mention in the NYT.
21
I remember her spectacular 1979 Dinner Party.
It was part of the movement that followed publication in 1971 of the book " Our Bodies, Ourselves".
Many of Georgia O'Keefe's floral still life paintings explored female sexuality, also.
25
I think that I need an MFA to appreciate her work.
3
You could just start with an open mind and see if that helped. Get the MFA later.
3
Back in the 1970's, as a teenager who was fortunate enough to grow up in New York City, I wandered into the Brooklyn Museum and found the inaugural exhibition of Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party" which commemorated women throughout history. Feminism was on my radar because of the Women's Movement of the era as well as my twin sister's activism. So I went to it with a wide open mind. It was amazing and left me with a new perspective in my nascent quest to look at art as meaningful and as a representation of the larger culture. This piece is now on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum and I highly recommend going to see it. It's importance cannot be understated.
40
Here's a link to the interview Judy Chicago did in the early 1970s with Sharon Smith (author of Women Who Make Movies, which would be published in 1975) and Sieu Hwa Beh, co-founder and editor of Women in Film magazine.
Smith and Beh were among the very first feminist film historians. At the time of this interview, Smith was working on her MA in the male-dominated USC Cinema Dept., and Beh was braving similar obstacles at UCLA's equally sexist film program.
The interview was done in Los Angeles and broadcast on KPFK radio:
https://archive.org/details/pacifica_radio_archives-BC0612
17