Last stop London! Judy Chicago has been an influential feminist artist in our lives since 1979 when Maggie, Kes and I travelled to the USA via San Francisco and experienced the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.
It was a momentous 5 year undertaking and its result was so powerful and proved so antagonistic to powerful men and the art establishment that Chicago that the work spent time in the art wilderness. It was criticised for being pornographic and also received criticism from high ranking Congress legislators.
However exhibitions of the Dinner Party were held in cities around the world including in Melbourne at the Royal Exhibition Building in 1988. It was rejected by the National Gallery of Victoria!
I was the Community Arts Network EO and was involved in bringing the Dinner Party to Melbourne and the CAN organised Dinner Parties across the State inviting women to create their own dinner plates of important and influential women in their lives.
Our next encounter with the Dinner Party was in Brooklyn NYC in where it has after so many years in storage been given a permanent home and a rightful place in the lexicon of art.
The Serpentine Gallery has a retrospective exhibition of Chicago’s work dating back to the ‘70’s to today. It is an inspiring, influential and brings to the fore an example of her collaborative work over several decades. It is a powerful reflection on the role of women that has been subjugated by men for centuries and still today.
https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/judy-chicago-revelations/
