Can you name ten great female artists of all of history?
I'm sure if the question was posed to name ten great artists of all time names like Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Andy Warhol, and many other men come to mind. This is the male dominated art world that had become so engrained in history, as well as society that a woman named Judy Chicago threatened to change during the 1960's and 1970's in Los Angeles, California.
Judy Chicago's main focus was to call women's attention to the crisis of the underrepresented gender in the art world of the 1970's in America. Judy Chicago, born Judy Cohen, grew up in Chicago Illinois. Chicago started her art at the age of three, most likely radically different from her later work. After studying Fine Arts at UCLA, and then getting married, Judy had been challenging artists to see the world from a more female point of view. After losing her husband, Judy dedicated her life to teaching young artists of the inequality of the educational system of art. In doing so Judy also created one of the most controversial art pieces of the feminist art movement.
"The Dinner Party" is arguably my favorite art installation piece made by a female artist. This massive forty-eight foot triangular dinner table closely resembles scenes of The Last Supper. This piece is meant to represent all of the forgetting females throughout history who metaphorically "set the table". There are place settings for thirty-nine guests, who each have their own runner with their name and achievement. The place setting of each woman contains a glass plate, decorated with a butterfly or floral motif symbolizing the vulva. By creating somewhat of a banquet of vaginas, if you will, Chicago shows her guests of this dinner party as heroes, much like the depiction of male dinner parties of the past. Chicago states, the work "takes us on a tour of Western civilization, a tour that bypasses what we have been taught to think of as the main road." Additionally the floor is inscribed with the names of 999 additional women who also were important enough for Chicago to recognize.
Chicago takes such a taboo subject and exploits it for all to see. Chicago gives power to these women of history through such an unconventional way it challenges not only female artists of this time, but many people today. Judy Chicago gave this beauty and recognition to wonderful woman, through completely demolishing this idea of classical art. However it is important to note that this installation includes ceramic, embroidery, weaving and sewing, while also including an enormous triangular table. The mixing of the mediums further blurs this line between typical female and male aspects of art.
"The Dinner Party" has been featured in sixteen exhibitions in over six countries, and has been viewed by over a million people. However, the names we still hear when talking about depictions of woman in art are those who never truly could capture the beauty and the strength of woman quite like Judy Chicago. There is quite an aversion to the female body parts, however there is something about this work that makes you appreciate the female form like other famous non-feminist artists have failed to capture, which is the truest part of being a female.
To learn more about Judy Chicago, watch this short video of her explaining her own view of her feminist artwork.