Artwork: The Dinner Party, 1974‒79. Ceramic, porcelain, textile, 576 x 576 in. (1463 x 1463 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © 2017 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (Photo © Donald Woodman)
Artwork: Sojourner Truth #2 Test Plate from The Dinner Party, circa 1978. Porcelain and China paint, diameter: 14 in. (35.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, gift of Judy Chicago, 82.165. © 2017 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © 2017 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (Photo: Sarah DeSantis, Brooklyn Museum)
When Judy Chicago unveiled “The Dinner Party” in San Francisco in 1979, she turned the art world upside down with the first epic work for the Feminist Art movement. Around an equilateral triangle table, she crafted elaborate place settings for 39 female figures from the history of western civilisation, beginning with the Primordial Goddess and ending with Georgia O’Keeffe. Along the way, viewers encounter Ishtar, Hatshepsut, Sappho, Theodora, Elizabeth I, Sacajawea, Soujourner Truth, Emily Dickinson, and Margaret Sanger, travelling from prehistoric times through the women’s revolution.
.
For each woman given a seat a the table, a place was set, her name embroidered on a table runner accompanied by symbols of her accomplishments. Then, for the piece de resistance, Chicago served up handmade plates of china, meticulously painted with the main dish: a vulva reminiscent of a flower or a butterfly. The table is situated on The Heritage Floor, composed of 2,000 white triangle-shaped tiles that bare then names of an additional 999 women who contributed to history.
.
When I first learned of the work in a “Women in Art History” class, the professor asked for reactions. Everyone was silent, agog or agape, lost in thought. But not me. My hand shot up and I blurted out, “The work is about going down – eating out – and I support that.”
.
The class tittered. My teacher blushed and quickly changed the subject, focusing on how “The Dinner Party” embraces the textile arts (weaving, embroidery, sewing) and china painting, all of which were traditionally relegated to the realm of crafts or, more plainly, women’s art. At the time of “The Dinner Party”, these modes of production had not been accorded parity with the male-dominated realm of drawing, painting, and sculpture, which were considered superior as forms of “fine art.”
.
In 2007, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opened at the Brooklyn Museum with “The Dinner Party” as its foundation. Now, to mark its ten-year anniversary, the Museum introduces Roots of The Dinner Party: History in the Making (October 20-March 4, 2018). The exhibition provides insight into the making of this historic work, which took six years to complete, and involved the work of nearly 400 women and men.
.
Featuring more than 100 objects including rarely seen test plates, research documents, ephemera, notebooks, and preparatory drawings, we are lead inside the creation of this phenomenal project. Chicago speaks with us about “The Dinner Party”, which has become her most influential work and one that, decades on, continues to inspire and provoke a wide array of responses from people from all walks of life.
.
.
Christina of Sweden (Great Ladies Series), 1973. Sprayed acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm). Collection of Elizabeth A. Sackler
© 2017 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (Photo © Donald Woodman
Artwork: Study for Virginia Woolf from The Dinner Party, 1978. Ink, photo, and collage on paper, approx. 24 × 36 in. (61 × 91.4 cm). National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Gift of Mary Ross Taylor in honor of Elizabeth A. Sackler. © 2017 Judy Chicago / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (Photo: Lee Stalsworth)