Awareness of this iconic work by feminist art Judy Chicago (b. 1939) is vital to any cultural literacy. When you visit the Brooklyn Museum, I urge you to spend enough time with it!
The Dinner Party (26.0, 26.1) consists of thirty-nine place settings on a triangular table. Each set of embroidered runners, gold chalices, utensils, and polychrome porcelain plates with raised motifs based on vulvar and butterfly forms (26.2) honors an important woman. The names of another 999 leading women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor.
Chicago took five years to create The Dinner Party at an estimated cost of $250,000. Over 400 people, mostly women, volunteered to assist in needlework, ceramics, and construction.
I recall that the work created a sensation when it was first exhibited in 1979. Unfortunately, the critical response was unkind and made too much of the vulvar forms. When I saw the work in person, I noticed that the imagery hardly focused on genitals. The critics’ pronouncements were sensationalist reductionism.
Women’s rights in the United States are being curtailed. Abortion has been limited or outlawed in some states. Women are dying in unneeded agony. Insensitive and boorish men are trumpeting, “Your body, my choice.” We who thought the Women’s Movement and the Civil Rights Movement were “finished” have been quickly sobered. We need to fight on—and pass the campaign on to future generations. Establishing equity, consideration, and respect must be an ongoing effort.
In a 1981 interview, Chicago said that the backlash of threats triggered the only time she considered suicide (even though the deaths of her father and her first husband had devastated her). She described herself as “like a wounded animal.” Chicago moved to a small rural community and relied on friends and acquaintances who took on administrative support roles and sheltered her.
Yes, it’s hard to advocate for social justice. We must persevere and protect those who have been valiant but are vulnerable. That’s why art reminds us of the struggles we’ve been through—and that the promise of a better world for every person is yet to be achieved.
_________
The Dinner Party. Judy Chicago (American, born 1939). 1974–79. Ceramic, porcelain, textile. 576 × 576 in. (1463 × 1463 cm). Brooklyn Museum
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party
For a list of the women represented by the place settings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dinner_Party
For a list of women on the heritage floor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_in_the_Heritage_Floor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dinner_Party