Judy Chicago’s the Dinner Party, Essay Example

Regardless of what one thinks about Judy Chicago’s master work The Dinner Party there is no way one can deny its historical impact or importance in feminist art history. Despite its recent its creation, the piece has become a feminist icon in global culture and has helped women reclaim their place in contemporary art. The unique piece raises profound questions regarding its identity as a piece of art or historical commentary. This paper will focus on this important question and present the thesis that The Dinner Party is best understood as a protest statement towards modern society, male dominance and established artistic forms.

Judy Chicago did not set out to make such bold statements when she began her artistic career. Born Judith Cohen, she started her artistic career producing generally modern but not feminist or avant-garde pieces. In her early years she commented, “Most female artists are not taken seriously as a result of their own lack of commitment to their careers and because many of the art classes demanded the use of power tools and skills not traditionally taught to women.” It was only with the death of her father and husband that she was forced to question her identity and chose to change her name to Judy Chicago. This name change can be interpreted as her consciously seeking to separate herself from convention and male domination. Overcoming these personal challenges and dedicated to creating a new media of artistic expression, Judy Chicago became the first female artist to seek permission from the state of California to use fireworks and flares in her groundbreaking artwork. This artistic extreme and desire to break out of what she considered the fossilized mediums of expression, drove Chicago to seek news techniques to express her burgeoning artistic, sexual and politics beliefs most effectively. All of this energy culminated in The Dinner Party, which sought to play with the concept of an all female Last Supper. Although the design and all the visual images used in the work being created and controlled exclusively by Judy Chicago, hundreds of volunteers worked to complete the overall production and presentation of the large-scale work (Parker 27).

This brings us to the question: is The Dinner Party a piece of art? Without a doubt the motivation and inspiration for the piece is to comment on the place of women in history and in artistic expression. Chicago agrees with this assessment stating that, “The installation is not a piece of art but a massive study project that develops awareness” (Phelan). This motivation to comment on sociology and history and increase the viewer’s awareness however does not excuse the installation from being an important piece of art, just as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica comments on violence and Fascist politics. In my estimation, the installation is both a piece of art and a profound cultural statement on feminist history because the work synthesizes various streams of information and presents it to viewer on an aesthetic level instead of merely presenting the information via writing in a textbook for example. When putting the piece together, Chicago sought to include myriad elements of women’s history and craft skills by including embroidery, needlepoint, sewing, beading, patchwork and sewing. Chicago utilized traditionally female concepts such as flowers, veils, pastel colors and sensual textures to create an experience designed to capture the female mystique as well as the unique historical women being presented. Art historian Janet Phelan writes that, “As a process of creation, the work remains an exemplar of artistic ambition. However, as an art work, The Dinner Party is not altogether satisfying.” Critics such as Phelan argue this dissatisfaction stems from the piece being too symbolic.

It is undeniable that The Dinner Party does hold tremendous symbolic meaning. For women who have been left out of the history of art as well as been unable to define artistic expression in relation to their experience, The Dinner Party celebrates women and puts them center place. The most obvious symbolic feature of the installation is its triangular shape. Phelan asserts that the triangle is a traditional female symbol for fertility and that fact that it is equilateral suggests both harmony and equality. The piece then evolves to encompass connotations of the Last Supper with each arm of the triangular table being able to accommodate thirteen women, since thirteen was the number of males at the Last Supper, associated with holiness, and counter-intuitively, the number associated with a witches’ coven, associated with evil” (Parker). Another scholar asserts that the triangle allows for three historical epochs to emerge. The first side represents pre-history and sits famous women from that period, with the second side spanning the dawn of Christianity to Modernity. The final section of the table represents our current historical epoch. In total, the three parts of the table demonstrate a progression from fertility god worship (where women wielded socio-political control) to a fallen state where female oppression is institutionalized by the powerful forces in society. The final intriguing element of the triangular shape of the installation is the fact that modernity is linked with pre-history. Is Chicago suggesting the possibility of a return to power by women over their lives and society? Though Chicago’s interpretation of historical precedent and the role played by women at specific historical periods may questioned, the sheer boldness and overwhelming symbolism of the piece leaves no doubt about her overall socio-political message yet raises profound questions about where society is heading in regards to female empowerment. Whatever the case The Dinner Party stirs up strong aesthetic and socio-political reactions from everyone who views the work.

Some of the strongest criticism of The Dinner Party came from the art world. Despite the eventual success of the work, the first public exhibition took five years to happen after it was finished and took place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Following the first show, the remaining exhibits tended to not be in institutional formats but occurred in alternative venues. Despite this cold shoulder from the art world’s mandarins, the work always enjoyed a tremendous positive response in its viewers. On top of the art world’s opinion, politically Conservative politicians who had not even seen the work criticizes it as merely, “”Vaginas served up on plates” (Parker) and California Republican Representative, Robert K. Dornan, referred to it as, “ceramic 3-D pornography” (Parker 32). The final group that was critical of The Dinner Party was other artists. Kay Larson of Village Voice called it., “brutal, baroque, and banal all at once” (32). In general, artists disliked the tremendous floor space and distance that the piece demanded which kept viewers from accessing the middle of the piece and thereby being removed from valuable information. One New York Times journalist criticized the piece as a vulgarity “more appropriate to an advertising campaign than a work of art.” In general, the majority of viewers who did not take offense with the piece’s message had problems with the installations style and often equated it with being “kitsch”, or functioning on a popular aesthetic level that did not deserve to be celebrated in a museum or considered seriously.

There did exist some criticism from the feminist world. Some feminists criticized the piece as ethno-centric and racist as it lacked any Afro-American characters. Furthermore, some criticized the piece as reducing female identity down to images of their genitals. In a similar vein, various critics viewed the work as over-simplifying all oppression women faced as being due to their gender rather than due to other forms of analysis such as nationality, ethnicity, economic class or age. The “butterfly vagina” conceit found on every place was a particular focus on criticism. Feminists argued that showing vaginas served on a place essentially presented them as passive, powerless and an object to be co-modified. Despite all this, the piece can be seen as an extension of the feminist worldview as it sought to define itself in the 1970s

Regardless of all this negative commentary, thousands of citizens came to the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see the piece and form their own opinion. In Meta-Link magazine, Nancy Wonder declared that the installation is so “multi-dimensional” and “mind-expanding’ that it would influence many lives and perspectives” (Parker). The significant percentage of people who came to the museum had no academic, professional or critical background and came away with profound aesthetic sentiments. Feminist scholar Lucy Lippard commented that, “My own initial experience was strongly emotional… The longer I spent with the piece, the more I became addicted to its intricate detail and hidden meaning,” and expressed her defense of the piece as one of the defining works of feminist art. Equally assertive was art scholar Hilton Kramer, who posited that, “The Dinner Party reiterates its theme with an insistence and vulgarity more appropriate, perhaps, to an advertising campaign than to a work of art.” While recognizing that the work did employ significant feminist elements, Maureen Mullarkey argued that it was overly preachy and not true to the women it attempts to represent. In particular, she found the hierarchical aspect of the work which focused on the social significance over the aesthetic value. She focused her attention on the plates of Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf as being unable to capture the intricacy of their personas and fails to capture these women’s thoughts on their female identity.

Taking a step back, The Dinner Party has emerged as holding a profound place in art history and the evolution of female identity. The work can be seen as an interesting subversion of Modernist Art concepts as it attempts to mix high and low art concepts. It is unclear if the lasting power of the installation piece persists due to its aesthetic appeal or draws interest from its unique design and socio-political conceits. Chicago’s goal of creating something profound to demonstrate the exclusion and isolation of women has been adopted by much of modern society.

In the 1970s, the image of the human body was being disparaged at this time, more than ever before. 1971 also saw the year in which the Bretton-Woods finical system collapsed by the Arab Oil Embargo and the needs of national currencies in the face of inflation which forced the profits out of the developed nations, causing social consequences that were not easily corrected. Aesthetically, the world became a place of false promises and hollows institutions with physical image of the human body being looked down on. Judy Chicago may not have been directly consciously aware of this overall drift that began in parallel with her new ideas for uncovering the increasing alienation of mankind from its humanity. Nevertheless her idea unfolded against this historic background that became an artistic trend.

The work of putting The Dinner Party project together kicked off in 1974. The installation required five years to finish. This decade was a time of tremendous creativity for Judy Chicago, with the aura of a universal love philosophy that is present throughout the piece. Unfortunately, this same period also saw the emergence of a number of political movements that were in line with Chicago’s politics and beliefs. For example, prior to the 1970s there were few if any art books, exhibitions or women art survey courses. No women were mentioned in the traditionally art history books and artist biographies of women were not being produced. Judy Chicago’s work was there more than groundbreaking — it was a aesthetic challenge to academic and artistic community that the topic of female achievement was historically adequate for a major work of artistic expression. Developing the topic and expressing it through a traditional medium (the large, heroic scale), mixing high and low art, collaborating directly with the public participants and recognizing their participation in the production of art were all ways that Chicago defied tradition and expanded the usual boundaries of the modern art world. Due to the range and scope of the challenge The Dinner Party represented, its public recognition was challenged over the twenty-five years that passed from the time it left the studio in California to the time it was presented to The Brooklyn Museum by Elizabeth Sackler. In 1979 the work was presented to tremendous public exclamation and criticism m by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, whose director, Henry Hopkins, had followed its development and financially supported it with grants years.

But can one declare that Judy Chicago’s art efforts had no effect? Whatever counteracts the isolation of society from its humanity, even to some degree, does have an uplifting effect on civilization. The problem is that there is no empirical evidence possible that documents what the world would have looked like had her efforts not been made. Perhaps without being aware of it, Judy Chicago has put her art on the line in a powerful manner to help roll back the increasing isolation of society from its humanity that would normally be deeply reflected to defend civilization in all of these areas. Judi Chicago now stands before us with a monumental challenge.

References

Chicago, Judy. Through The Flower: My Struggle as A Woman Artist. Lincoln: Authors Choice Press (2006).

Jones, Amelia. Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History. Berkeley: University of California Press (1996).

Nemser, Cindy. “The Women Artists’ Movement,” Feminist Art Journal 2.4 (1973–1974).

Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Artnews (Special Issue on Women’s Liberation, Woman Artists and Art History), Jan. 1971: 22-71.

Parker, Rozsika and Griselda Pollock, ed. Framing Feminism: Art and the Women’s Movement, 1970–85, 1987.

Phelan, Peggy. Art and Feminism. London: Phaidon, 2001.