Dinner Party (Judy Chicago)

The "Dinner Party" was conceived with the aim of putting an end to the belittling and oblivion of the role of women in the history of mankind. The basis of the composition is a banquet table for 39 people, each place behind which is intended to be one of the greatest women in the history of Western civilization and is marked by its name and symbols of its achievements. For each person there is a napkin, dish, appliances, as well as a glass or bowl. On many plates there are sculptural images of flowers or butterflies, symbolizing the vagina. The "Dinner Party", being the fruit of the joint work of many different artists - men and women, pays tribute to such artistic forms as textiles (weaving, embroidery, sewing) and porcelain painting, traditionally considered to be female forms of art and related more to crafts than to elegant arts in which male dominance has always been observed. The table itself is made in the form of an equilateral triangle with a side length of 14.63 meters and is mounted on a white tiled floor, triangular tiles of which contain the names of another 999 famous women ^[1] .

It took 6 years and 250,000 US dollars to create a job, not counting the labor contribution of volunteers ^[2] . The project began under the name “ Twenty-Five Women Who Were Eaten Alive ”. He allowed Judy Chicago to realize the image of the “vagina butterfly” she had invented, as well as his interest in porcelain painting in the setting of high art ^[2] . The idea soon expanded to thirty-nine names, divided into three groups of thirteen people. Form is of particular importance, since the triangle has long been considered a symbol of a woman. In addition, it is an equilateral triangle symbolizing equality, and 13 is the number of those present at the Last Supper , which was especially important for Chicago, since all thirteen were men ^[2] .

The first three years Chicago worked alone; over the next three years, more than 400 people worked on the "Dinner Party", mainly volunteers. 125 of them were recognized as “project participants”. The project was organized in accordance with the so-called “benevolent hierarchy” and “non-hierarchical leadership”, as Chicago developed many aspects of the work and made final decisions ^[2] .

39 plates form a rising plane as a sign of the gradual gain of independence by modern women, who are not yet completely, however, free from social expectations ^[3] .

The Dinner Party was shown to the general public for the first time at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1979, which attracted over 100,000 visitors in three months. The work, despite resistance from the artistic community, toured in 16 places in 6 countries on 3 continents, reaching a audience of 15 million people. Since 2007 it has been on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum (New York, United States of America).

Another 999 names selected by a special commission are written on hand-made ceramic tiles forming the floor inside a triangular installation. It bears the name " Heritage Floor ".

The work was praised differently by critics. The famous defender of feminist art, writer and art critic Lucy Lippard called the composition an excellent example of feminist aspirations ^[2] , expressing her attitude with the words:

"My personal first perception was purely emotional ... The longer I delved into this work, the more I was captivated by the subtlety of details and hidden meaning."

Original text

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 meanings.

Many other critics who praised the work of Judy Chicago ^[4] shared her point of view.

Negative reviews were no less adamant. Hilton Kramer wrote that the work uses self-repetition “with perseverance and vulgarity, more suitable for an advertising campaign rather than a work of art” ^[5] , emphasizing that this is not just kitsch - it is “base art ... failed art, ... art mired in blind pursuit so much so that it is not capable of gaining its own independent artistic life ” ^[5] .

Roberta Smith stated that “the historical meaning and social significance of the installation may exceed its aesthetic value” ^[6] .

Maureen Mullarki suggested that Chicago simply used female volunteers, thus calling into question the hierarchical principle of working on the project ^[7] (however, Chicago never denied that it was responsible for every detail of the resulting installation). Mullarki also criticized a number of plates, especially Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf and Georgia O'Keefe; according to her views, the work is anti-feminist for a number of reasons, including excessive emphasis on the field in “non-gender” professions, images of “vaginas” in violation of personal space, etc. ^[7] In general, the idea of ​​“butterflies-vaginas” was criticized as, in expression Congressman Bob Dorman, “ceramic 3-D pornography, ” and, according to some feminists, as a symbol of a passive beginning. However, this is quite in line with the feminist movement of the 1970s, focused on the body. Other feminists disagree with this work, as it represents a vision of the world of female experience in which many aspects are not presented - for example, women who are not related to the white race and traditional sexual orientation are poorly represented in the work ^[8] .

• Chicago, Judy. The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation . London: Merrell (2007). ISBN 1-85894-370-1 .
• Chicago, Judy. The Dinner Party: A Symbol of our Heritage. New York: Anchor (1979). ISBN 0-385-14567-5
• Chicago, Judy. Through The Flower: My Struggle as A Woman Artist. Lincoln: Authors Choice Press (2006). ISBN 0-595-38046-8
• Jones, Amelia. Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History. Berkeley: University of California Press (1996). ISBN 0-520-20565-0

Documentary

• Right Out of History: Judy Chicago , Phoenix Learning Group (2008) (DVD)

Video

• CAFKA.TV's coverage of the opening of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the permanent home of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party on YouTube March 28, 2007
• Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum on YouTube Video tour of the work and part of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art by James Kalm. March 28, 2007. Accessed September 2009.

• The Dinner Party exhibition website from the Brooklyn Museum, including a searchable database of all the women represented.
• The Dinner Party from Chicago's non-proift organization, Through the Flower.