Some would say Judy Chicago is the Godmother of feminist art. She might be eighty years old but she still has a strong foothold in the feminist art world.
Since the 1970s, Chicago has worked tirelessly to alter the representation of women through her artworks. In a world where inequality is still a problem, it is difficult to imagine the social and political climate that she was working in over fifty years ago. Women were put in boxes and limited to domestic roles, often seen as objects of ownership. Chicago frequently used imagery of male and female genitalia, a move that was unimaginably bold back then.
Since the 1970s, Chicago has worked tirelessly to alter the representation of women through her artworks
However, boundary-pushing artistic decisions such as these that made her such a pioneering figure. Her most famous artwork is The Dinner Party, which is now on permanent display in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The artwork consists of an installation of a huge ceremonial banquet arranged on a triangular table with thirty-nine place settings, each one commemorating an important woman from history. In-keeping with her style, Chicago chose to place raised motifs in the centre of each place based on vulvar and butterfly forms rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honoured. It stands as a beautiful yet powerful memorial to women in the arts.
The Baltic Art Gallery in Newcastle is currently exhibiting some of her work in the first major UK survey of the artist. The exhibition displays works spanning her fifty-year career, through which she has explored the human condition, birth and death, as well as her own emotional journey as an artist. This stunning show, which takes its spectators on a ferociously feminist journey, is not to be missed!
