Assignment 6: Brooklyn Museum Visit
Title: Free Flowing and Flowering Vulvas-Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party
Student: Enid Farber
Mentor: Raul Manzano
Date: November 15th, 2008
Following our last class tour for the Interpreting Art in New York City Museums class, I attended a lecture in the same museum. It seemed a perfectly complementary closing statement for this class and all that I learned and how I grew intellectually as an artist. Four panelists and one moderator reminded me that the most instructive and beneficial way to view art is through the prism of information about the artist (Tate). I cannot emphasize enough how understanding and interpreting art is much more of an exact science when a foundation of information is provided beforehand. The benefit derived from authoritative previous interpretations and explanations is also extremely useful for a novice art interpreter.
Judy Chicago’s own thorough and extensive research that precipitated her abundant project, The Dinner Party, is proof positive of how the more you know before you initiate or execute your ideas, the more powerful and remarkable the result. I cannot imagine another artistic endeavor that was precluded with the amount of time and effort and devotion and research and training in arts that were not familiar to the artist previously, than The Dinner Party. Chicago had to learn the crafts of fine china painting, needlework and ceramics, not to mention the historical research that she had to undertake in order to learn about the amazing lives of more than a thousand women. Many of these women’s biographies were grossly underrepresented in literature and she had to delve beyond the surface resources to make a statement about their contributions that were often suppressed.
Her intention was to gather the spirit of these women whom she felt were some of the leading historical or mythological leaders of their respective times and to create a virtual conversation that would inspire generations long after their impact on society was realized. So that women could inherit their lessons and never forget their contributions. So that those that never had a voice could finally be celebrated with a grand and respectful tribute through the stunning effect of art. Her symbolism is so carefully orchestrated and so brilliantly executed that one can only wonder how one woman alone could have channeled the ghosts of these extraordinary women and told their story in one singular lifetime. Because she did, Judy Chicago is perhaps one of the greatest feminists of all time. This tribute to women is a testimony that is truly revolutionary and if studied carefully can influence and inspire all women on many levels.
Silence=death, that is the motto that has been used by Gay rights groups who have fought the AIDS epidemic and the attached stigma that it has engendered. The visual logo is a pink triangle floating above those words. It harkens back to Nazi Germany when homosexuals had to wear it to be properly identified, just as Jews had to wear a yellow triangle. Judy Chicago’s table was constructed as a triangle, apparently to symbolize equality. But beyond that interpretation and intention, I see it similar to the meaning of the AIDS movement association, that without a voice we die, that we must not hide or we will fade away, that we must not allow stigmas and prejudice and sexism and racism to keep us quiet and passive or we will not survive. Chicago has resurrected the voice of so many women who never were acknowledged or appreciated in their times and the triangle is, in my opinion, a way to symbolize the platform for those voices.
For the purposes of objectivity, I should refrain from too much of an explanation of my own plight as an artist of the female persuasion. But through this lens of experience I am able to relate to “The Dinner Party” in a profound way. Although a significant amount of women artists have attained great stature and are considered as important to the art world as their male counterparts, there are still so many more barriers and obstacles that they have to conquer. Jazz photography, for instance, is dominated by men as is jazz journalism and of course the body of musicians that play the music is still mostly comprised of men.
I asked jazz musician and scholar, Lewis Porter, about the exact statistics and he directed me to an article entitled, “Cool Chicks and Hot Licks”. The author wrote, “according to a recent study by the NEA on the work life of jazz musicians, women still represent only 15.6% of jazz musicians, with the majority being vocalists”. (Herzig). Thus the glass ceiling is less penetrable for a woman playing an instrument previously played mostly by men and there are stigmas in some cases. I have observed that even some other women have a hard time taking a female trombonist seriously, and for a woman daring enough to play a male centric instrument getting a gig is often an insurmountable struggle. The point is, in my world of jazz, I understand how suppressed women’s voices are, even now, almost 40 years after the creation of The Dinner Party.
On the second section of The Dinner Party table, is a plate that depicts the artist, Artemisia Gentileschi, a Roman post-renaissance artist born in 1593 who was one of the most prolific artists of her day yet a lot of what she created was credited to her artist father. Gentileschi was raped by an artist her father hired to tutor her, an ultimately absorbed the shame that was inflicted on her even though she was the innocent one. Many of her paintings were a cathartic release for the mental suffering she endured. On the comprehensive website devoted to her body of work, there is a painting entitled, Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting. There is a comment about her life that supplements the work and it states,
“Artemisia completed this painting at the end of her stay in Rome. A mature and respected artist, she moved to Naples. She acquired the patronage of Philip IV of Spain, Charles I of England, and the Duke of Modena. With such regal patrons how could an artist of this magnitude have been so easily forgotten by art historians? Was it simply because she was a woman?” (Parker)
That last question is what drives Judy Chicago to devote so much of her life and soul to this project. After all, what else would compel her to open herself up to so much controversy and criticism?
Perhaps it is no accident that the last place setting on Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party table belongs to last but not least, Georgia O’Keefe. I have admired O’Keefe’s work ever since I discovered the medium of photography and learned about her and her husband Alfred Steiglitz. The work that I was drawn to were her paintings of flowers, specimens of nature that she portrayed very much in the spirit of female sexual parts, similar to Chicago’s plates. The similarity or the tribute or whatever it is meant to be, certainly begs the question, was this intentional and did Judy Chicago have the blessings of Georgia O’Keefe? These two women have taken a part of a woman’s anatomy that for many would be seen as vulgar and made beautiful art and objects of them and perhaps de-objectifying women in a very conscious act of defiance. Is the vulva as icon a route to empowerment for women? As feminism competes with the current culture of total immodesty where women are pushing their sexiness and sexual attributes more than ever, can exposure to The Dinner Party influence a younger generation of women to respect their elders in the feminist movement who made it possible for them to be in positions of power today and not to take their rightful places in society for granted?
That answer is complicated. I’m amused by a couple of quotes from young women of this generation who are still proud to be called feminists. A Washington Post staff writer, visited the newly installed Dinner Party, in 2007 and interviewed Chicago who asked the young journalist what she really thought about the work…
“I came clean and told her about my reaction . . . mostly. I told her that the obvious vaginal imagery made me squirm. But I chickened out and didn’t tell her that “The Dinner Party” looked like a relic of stereotypical, bras-a-blazin’ feminism. It looked so ’70s, like a burnt-orange carpet that someone had been too lazy to replace. It didn’t seem relevant to the feminist topics I care about, like balancing work and family, and young women thinking it’s okay to starve like their favorite celebrities” (Beckman).
Chicago was not offended and reminded her interviewer that, “I think we’re all educated to be frightened of female power and . . . I think you should be upset about the culture that made it that way” (Beckman). Undoubtedly, the fragility of the feminist message and legacy is a concern for the woman who coined the phrase and concept, “feminist art”.
I am forever in awe of “The Dinner Party” as artistic, social, political and feminist statement, the scale and scope of which might never be repeated. Judy Chicago’s book, “The Dinner Party” begins with a quote that echoes my sense of concern for the generation that inherits the benefits of feminism but somehow many seem oblivious to the lessons. “Lucky are you, reader, if you happen not to be of that sex to whom it is forbidden all good things; to whom liberty is denied; to whom almost all virtues are denied; lucky are you if you are one of those who can be wise without it being a crime.” (Chicago)
Citations:
Tate, Greg, Edwin Ramoran, Vivien Goldman, Eleanor Heartney, and Faith Salie. “Negotiating Identities in Contemporary Art and Society” Talks and Tours: Panel Discussion. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn. 15 Nov. 2008.
Herzig, Dr. Monika. “Cool Chicks and Hot Licks, Hoosier Jazz News.” Acme Records. 18 Sept. 2008. 25 Nov. 2008 <http://acmerecords.com/hoosierjazznews/?p=63>.
Parker, Christine. “Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting.” Life and Art of Artemisia Gentileschi. 1999. 2 Dec. 2008 <http://www.artemisia-gentileschi.com/self.html>.
Beckman, Rachel. “Her Table Is Ready Judy Chicago’s ‘Dinner Party’ Is Still a Conversation Piece.” WashingtonPost.com. 22 Apr. 2007.4 Dec. 2008 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/ar2007042000419.html>.
Chicago, Judy. The Dinner Party. New York: Viking Adult, 1996. 3-3.
