Since the fall of 2019, which seems like a lifetime ago, I embarked on a long journey of self-reflection as I revisited my two earlier autobiographies, 'Through the Flower' and 'Beyond the Flower'. It was like having an in-depth conversation with my younger self. As I result, I decided to reexamine my life and career, update the story I began in 1975 and add a whole new section to deal with how much has changed since 1996, when 'Beyond the Flower' ended. On this last day of Women’s History Month, I am so excited to unveil the cover for my complete autobiography 'The Flowering' which will hopefully be inspiring, empowering, and useful to anyone interested in making a change—a goal which has fueled my career. The Flowering, with a foreword by Gloria Steinem, will be published on July 20, 2021—coincidentally my 82nd birthday—by Thames & Hudson. Through the Flower, the non-profit arts organization that I founded in 1977, is now taking advance orders for SIGNED copies!
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The Judy Chicago Art Education Award funded by MaryRoss Taylor. The award honors Judy Chicago and her pioneering work as an art educator. The award is open to scholars, artists, and educators for a project based on primary research incorporating any of the three archives that are collaborating in the development of the Judy Chicago Portal. Click the link to learn more and apply.
Two years ago, the arts organization Desert X in Palm Springs, Calif., canceled a Jenny Holzer light projection to be shown on a local mountainside during its biennial exhibition for fear of endangering bighorn sheep that roamed there.
Now, Judy Chicago’s plans for creating an ephemeral, atmospheric artwork at the 1,200-acre Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert for the upcoming edition of the biennial have been scrapped after an environmental activist began a letter-writing campaign against the project, raising questions about its effects on sheep and other animals in the region.
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EVENT CANCELED
I am pleased to announce that my new "Smoke Sculpture", "LIVING SMOKE: A TRIBUTE TO THE LIVING DESERT," will debut at Desert X on April 9, 2021, from 4:30 to 7 PM PT. The work will be live-streamed around the world by Desert X at desertx.org, by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation via www.chicagolivingart.org, and other social media platforms. Thank you to Desert X, The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, Living Desert Zoo & Gardens, Palm Springs Life, and Think Together for making this viewing possible.
Desert X 2021 is curated by Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and Co-Curator César García-Alvarez. March 12 – May 16, Coachella Valley, CA, and is presented by Richard Mille. Premier sponsor Gucci.
SaveArtSpace is pleased to present Whistling in the Dark a cross-media, tri-city, public art exhibition curated by Caledonia Curry (Swoon) and Gianni Lee. The selected artists are Megan Gabrielle Harris, Shanina Dionna, Cheryl Derricotte, Cydney Camp, George Ferrandi, Katie Kalkstein, Sasha Lynn, Elianel Clinton, and Judy Chicago.
These artists, along with Swoon and Gianni Lee, will be displayed on billboards in New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Billboards in each city will be installed the week of February 1, 2021, and the billboards will be on view for at least one month.
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Bringing individuals together through their experience of the work, Judy Chicago Rainbow AR unfolds as an interactive performance, releasing plumes of smoke and changing color. Curling and billowing across the viewers’ screens, the work will invite audiences to interact with the smoke, walking through or around it. Produced in close collaboration with Pyro Spectaculars, Light Art Space, and experienced designers International Magic
Date: November 20, 2020 – December 19, 2020
Jeffrey Deitch
18 Wooster Street
New York, NY
Telephone: 212.343.7300
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Date: November 11, 2020 – November 15, 2020
Hall B West Bund Art Center
2555 Longteng Ave
Xuhui District, Shanghai, China
Based on its own collection system, the Longlati Non-profit Foundation has joined hands with Judy Chicago and Stanley Whitney to present their seminal works to Chinese audiences. This exhibition is supported by Lisson Gallery and Salon 94 Gallery and is curated by Sun Wenjie.
Date: October 31, 2020 – 2021
Through the Flower Art Space
107 Becker Avenue
Belen, New Mexico 87002
Through the Flower Art Space presents CONFINED by Judy Chicago! This show is a response to life during the pandemic and the feelings of isolation that it has caused. Featured in Confined are prints and drawings by Judy Chicago which express these themes.
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Date: October 15, 2020
Participants will connect through Zoom for a global celebration of Judy Chicago’s lifetime achievements with special appearances from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Brooklyn Museum.
On the occasion of my exhibitions with Jessica Silverman Gallery, I will be in conversation with Claudia Schmuckli, Curator in Charge of Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, for an in-depth conversation about the intersection of feminism and environmentalism. In the fall of 2021, the de Young Museum will host the first major retrospective of my work. Tune in via Zoom on Tuesday, October 6 at 11 AM PT for our conversation.
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Judy Chicago is back for a second collaboration with Dior – and this time, you can walk away with it. The artist designed the monumental set for Maria Grazia Chiuri’s spring haute couture show in January: a tent shaped like a goddess figure, filled with 21 banners embroidered with feminist messages. Now she is one of 10 artists tasked with customizing the Lady Dior handbag for the fifth edition of the Dior Lady Art project.
Salon 94 is pleased to present "Chicago in Ink: An Autobiography". In a rare gesture for a contemporary artist, Judy Chicago has made prints with most of her bodies of work since 1965. Like much of the media she employs, printmaking is an inherently collaborative venture. Harnessing the respective expertise of master printers, Chicago fiercely experiments in various printing techniques. The multiplicity of prints and their collaborative production process expands the democratic accessibility of Chicago’s work.
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Jessica Silverman is pleased to present two shows by Judy Chicago: “Mother Earth,” an exhibition of new and historic works expressive of the artist’s longstanding concern for the environment and climate justice, and “Cohanim,” a series of porcelain paintings, commemorating Leonard Cohen and his lyrics. Chicago will enjoy a retrospective survey show at the De Young Museum in San Francisco in November 2021.
Turner Carroll is proud to present the online exhibition film, Judy Chicago: A Revolution in Print. Narrated by Tonya Turner Carroll, this film explores each print in panoramic detail and in the context of Chicago’s six-decade journey in printmaking. Parallel to the upcoming retrospective at the de Young Museum, this film serves as a retrospective in its own right and is presented in celebration of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation acquiring the print archive of Judy Chicago.
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Oregon-based philanthropist and owner of one of the world’s most important post-war and contemporary print collections, Jordan D. Schnitzer, the President of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, has acquired the significant print archive of world-renowned artist Judy Chicago, whose art has pushed the boundaries of technology and subject matter for her entire six-decade career. Chicago’s print archive and the associated studies and process works represent her journey as a woman artist in an art world long dominated by male artists, curators, and critics.
Gallery exhibition on view June 20 - July 12, 2020
Online exhibition on view June 20 - August 12, 2020
Public gallery opening: June 20, 2020 from 3:00 - 6:30 pm
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
Turner Carroll Gallery, 725 Canyon Rd, Santa Fe, NM
In conjunction with this initiative, Judy Chicago and Turner Carroll Gallery have curated a gallery and an online exhibition titled, Solstice: Create Art for Earth. Forty works were selected from more than 3000 submissions sent in from around the world. The exhibition is scheduled to open to coincide with this year's summer solstice on June 20th. The gallery exhibition will be on view through
July 12th; online exhibition through August 12th.
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I am pleased to announce the Nevada Museum of Art's recent acquisition of my fireworks archive for its Center for Art + Environment Archive Collections. The archive, Judy Chicago: Dry Ice, Smoke, and Fireworks, contains materials from my extensive body of work with dry ice, colored smoke, and fireworks, manifested in 45 projects spanning from 1967 through the present. These objects include thousands of photographs, digital images, slides, 16 mm films, correspondence, drawings, maps, notes, maquettes, clothing, and a limited edition set of prints.
Judy Chicago and Turner Carroll Gallery are co-curating an exhibition at Turner Carroll titled Solstice: Create Art for Earth, opening June 20, 2020 to coincide with the summer solstice. Artists from around the world are invited to submit artworks in all media, created specifically for or inspired by this project, that envision a better future. The summer solstice has long been a symbol of new beginnings and a celebration of nature. As such, this project is in keeping with Judy Chicago's long and celebrated career in that it encourages new artistic thinking that can help bring about change as some of the artist's projects have done, notably her most recent work The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction. 10% of proceeds from this exhibition will benefit Through the Flower, the nonprofit founded by Judy Chicago in 1977 with the mission to counter the erasure of women's achievements through art.
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Please join our global effort to flood the world with art that puts forward images of healing, of caring, of repairing, of joining together to create a just and equitable world. Use whatever spaces you have; your balconies, your windows, your doorways, your roofs, any available space. Sing songs, create performances, recite poems that you have created to transmit a meaningful message, one that can be widely understood. This is no time for abstractions; it is time to use our talents on behalf of survival. This must be a worldwide effort if it is to be effective. Join us as we attempt to change the course of history.
Upload your creations to Instagram, tag @Judy.Chicago and include the hashtag
#CreateArtForEarth
Join Judy Chicago on a virtual tour of our latest exhibition "On Fire: Judy Chicago Fireworks with Photographs by Donald Woodman" will be on view at Through the Flower Art Space, which currently closed but will reopen to the public when it is safe again.
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The Judy Chicago Art Education Award funded by Mary Ross Taylor. The award honors Judy Chicago and her pioneering work as an art educator. The award is open to scholars, artists, and educators for a project based on primary research incorporating any of the three archives that are collaborating in the development of the Judy Chicago Portal, which was launched in October 2019.
July 26, 2020
2:00 - 5:00 pm
Through the Flower Art Space
107 Becker Avenue
Belen, NM. 87002
(505) 503-1955 or (505) 864-4080
A new exhibition opening and Fundraising Event at Through the Flower Art Space. There will be a presentation by Judy Chicago discussing her pyrotechnics work through the years. Following the presentation, Donald Woodman will join the discussion for an audience Q&A.
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The Female Divine,
Judy Chicago’s collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director for Christian Dior, for the Spring/Summer 2020 haute couture show in Paris is making headlines across the globe.
Being hailed as “one of the most ambitious art-and-fashion partnerships in recent years” (artnet news), a “feminine tour-de-force” (CR Fashionbook), and the “coup of her career” ( Prestige Magazine), media coverage of the collaboration spanned the globe and exploded on social media outlets.
January 21-26, 2020
Musée Rodin
77 Rue de Varenne
75007 Paris, France
"The Female Divine", created for the Dior Couture Spring-Summer 2020 show, may be viewed from 10 am - 6 pm through January 26th at the Musée Rodin in Paris.
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At the invitation of the Creative Director of women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Dior Spring-Summer 2020 Haute Couture show set was designed by the feminist artist Judy Chicago displays a series of large appliquéd and embroidered banners, posing a range of questions around the evolution of the role and power of women through the ages, starting with “What if Women Ruled the World?”
JUDY CHICAGO
16 November 2019 – 19 April 2020
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
S Shore Rd, Gateshead NE8 3BA, United Kingdom
In her 80th birthday year, BALTIC presents the first major UK survey of pioneering feminist artist, author and educator Judy Chicago. The exhibition spans Chicago's fifty-year career, from her early actions in the desert in the 1970s, to her most recent series, The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction (2013–16), which has not been previously shown outside of the US.
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October 17, 2019
The Judy Chicago Portal bridges Judy Chicago collection housed in three institutions: Penn State University, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of women in America. Bringing together a public university library, a private institutional library, and a museum allows-in this rare collaboration- for the potential of each repository to consider and embrace new audiences and their collective interested in Judy Chicago’s oeuvre and overall impact.
October 12, 2019
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Boulevard
Westwood, Los Angeles. 90024
The Hammer Museum will be honoring trailblazing feminist artist Judy Chicago and filmmaker Jordan Peele at this year’s Gala in the Garden. The annual celebration recognizes artists and innovators who have made profound contributions to society through their work.
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September 22, 2019 from 4:30 – 8:00 pm
National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
Chicago joins book contributor Martha C. Nussbaum, philosopher and Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, to discuss New Views and the current exhibition Judy Chicago—The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction, featuring her newest body of work. The exhibition is on view at NMWA from September 19, 2019, to January 20, 2020.
September 19, 2019–January 20, 2020
National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
Through this series, the artist reflects on her own mortality and appeals for compassion and justice for all earthly creatures affected by human greed. Chicago’s bold, graphic style viscerally communicates the intense emotion she experienced while contemplating her own death as well as the death of entire species. The exhibition is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and made possible by the MaryRoss Taylor Exhibition Fund.
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Judy Chicago on the cover of Purple Magazine - The Cosmos issue. Featuring an interview with Jeffrey Deitch and portraits by Donald Woodman.
September 7–November 2, 2019
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, LA
925 N Orange Drive, Los Angeles
Judy Chicago created a remarkable body of work in Los Angeles and Fresno from 1965 - 72 that has been largely unseen for fifty years. Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles will present a full survey of these early works from September 7 – November 2, 2019. The exhibition will feature paintings, drawings, sculpture, installations, and documentation of Chicago’s environmental and fireworks projects.
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Event Date: September 5, 2019
Time: 5:30-7:30 pm
Location: Jeffrey Deitch Gallery
925 North Orange Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Pioneering artists Judy Chicago in conversation with Andrea Bowers, moderated by Connie Butler.
Through The Flower Art Space
107 Becker Ave
Belen, NM 87002
Friday, August 23rd
6:30-7:30pm
The Through the Flower Art Space will host its inaugural "Flower Friday” event on Friday, August 23rd: Judy Chicago in conversation with acclaimed arts journalist, Jori Finkel, on women pioneers of abstract painting, including Hilma af Klint, Georgia O’Keeffe and Agnes Pelton. Their topic for the night is inspired by an interview in Finkel's new book "It Speaks to Me", in which Chicago discusses a painting by Pelton as an example of early abstraction that she finds powerful and empowering.
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July 20th - 21st, 2019
107 Becker Ave
Belen, NM 87002
Join us for the Grand Opening of the Through the Flower Art Space On the occasion of Judy Chicago's 80th birthday!
Through the Flower Art Space will be giving timed tours all weekend, after the tours, there will be a very special fireworks performance by Judy Chicago, "A Birthday Bouquet for Belen." Many other events include a Judy Chicago Wines release party and a TTF sponsored Pop-up exhibition!
Reserve your tickets below!
THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 6pm
George Pearl Hall, UNM
Albuquerque, NM
In conjunction with her residency with Tamarind Institute, artist Judy Chicago will take part in a public conversation with curator Merry Scully. Merry Scully is Head of Curatorial Affairs, Curator of Contemporary Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe.
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Judy Chicago doesn’t mince words. “In the ’60s and ’70s, you had to paint like you were a white guy if you wanted to show your work,” says the artist, whose 1979 feminist masterpiece, The Dinner Party, features the lady bits of historical and mythical women served up on supper plates.
In honor of The Dinner Party's 40th Anniversary,
Through the Flower is offering a special discount on a signed The Dinner Party poster.
Originally ̶$̶3̶5̶, now only $25
This limited offer is available now through the end of March 31, 2019.
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Saturday, February 23
6-7pm EST Livestream
YouTube
Missed out on tickets? Be among the first to experience the sold-out debut of Judy Chicago's A Purple Poem For Miami, live from the Design District Jungle Plaza in Miami, FL.
Sat, Feb 23, 2019
Doors open 5:30pm
Performance at sunset (6:15pm)
Jungle Plaza
3801 NE 1st Ave, Miami, FL 33137
ICA Miami presents a new site-specific performance by Judy Chicago in the Miami Design District Jungle Plaza. Entitled A Purple Poem for Miami, Chicago’s new smoke performance is presented as part of ICA Performs, the museum’s signature platform for the development of new and recent works from leading performance artists.
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NEW YORK
Featuring an exclusive conversation with renowned artist Judy Chicago
Tuesday, January 15, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Max Mara, 813 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
BEVERLY HILLS
Featuring an exclusive conversation with renowned artist Judy Chicago and Associate Curator, ICA Miami Stephanie Seidel
Tuesday, January 22, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Max Mara, 451 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
MIAMI
Featuring an exclusive conversation with renowned artist Judy Chicago and Artistic Director, ICA Miami Alex Gartenfeld
Tuesday, February 26, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Max Mara, 106 Northeast 39th Street, Miami, FL
RSVP to RSVP@USA.MAXMARA.COM
Saturday, February 9, 2019 at 7 PM – 10 PM
Jaramillo Vineyards Tasting Room
Belen, New Mexico 87102
Jerah Cordova, Ronnie Torres and Jaramillo Vineyards invite you to a night with world-renowned feminist artist Judy Chicago and photographer Donald Woodman.
This ticketed event will feature three hours of art, hor d'oeuvres, wine and entertainment, including words from Judy Chicago. All proceeds benefit the creation of Judy and Donald's Through the Flower ArtSpace in Belen, New Mexico.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-influential-artists-2018
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"Through the Flower, my nonprofit arts organization is launching a Go Fund Me campaign! The city of Belen, NM recently proposed the creation of an Art Space that would celebrate the history of my life in Belen with my husband, photographer, Donald Woodman. Though the proposal was met with great enthusiasm from people across New Mexico, it was prevented from moving forward in the proposed partnership with the city by a small, but vocal, group as a result of their protests to the Belen City Council which were greatly misinformed. Due to the numerous notes and messages of support from community members requesting that Through the Flower proceed with plans for this Art Space on our own, we have initiated a fundraising campaign to help us get started. Please support Through the Flower!"
Your donation of as little as $1O will make a difference in the support of art, art education, community development, and the realization of the Through the Flower Art Space.
Judy Chicago: A Reckoning
December 4, 2018 - April 21, 2019
ICA Miami
61 NE 41st Street
Miami, FL 33137
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents “Judy Chicago: A Reckoning,” a major survey of works by the pioneering feminist artist. This exhibition highlights Chicago’s iconographic transition from abstraction to figuration, and explores the ways in which the artist’s strong feminist voice transforms our understanding of modernism and its traditions.
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Issue 323
November – January 2019
Bodily figuration features prominently in this issue of Flash Art, which includes Judy Chicago’s Immolation (1972) from her “Women and Smoke” series (1968–74) on its cover. The work counts among those Chicago made before taking up the central core imagery that constitutes her landmark 1974–79 work The Dinner Party, with which she is often narrowly identified. On the occasion of “Judy Chicago: A Reckoning,” a major survey opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, this December, Flash Art invited Géraldine Gourbe, Viki D. Thompson Wylder, William J. Simmons, and Stephanie Seidel to reflect on Chicago’s practice and legacy. This special dossier seeks to supplement the artist’s popular recognition with a plurality of critical voices.
Saturday, July 7, 2018 | 2:00pm–6:00pm
Judy Chicago is joined by art historian, critic, and curator Betty Ann Brown, Ph.D. to discuss her groundbreaking art practice and feminist activism as well as her exhibition "Birth Project: Born Again" that is currently on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Q&A with curator Viki Thompson Wylder, Ph.D., to follow.
Women’s City Club of Pasadena
160 N Oakland Ave, Pasadena, CA 91101.
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Birth Project: Born Again
June 17, 2018–October 7, 2018
Pasadena Museum of California Art
490 Union St, Pasadena, CA
This exhibition reassembles approximately sixteen of the most exceptional Birth Project works, examining both past and present attitudes towards female empowerment and sexuality and underscoring Chicago’s redefinition of the terms art and craft. By presenting the works thirty-plus years after their creation, the exhibition emphasizes the role art can play in giving voice to the ongoing process of social change, particularly in regards to both reproductive choice and health care.
Wednesday, May 23 | 7:30 PM -
Program A
Black Box Theatre, NYU Tisch
715 Broadway, 2nd Floor. NY 10003
Sunday, May 27 | 2:00 PM - Program B
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway,
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Short operas inspired by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party.
A collaboration between NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, American Opera Projects, and the Brooklyn Museum
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The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), a global leader in art and design education, will welcome celebrated artist Judy Chicago to deliver the School’s commencement address on Monday, May 14, at Wintrust Arena, 200 East Cermak Road.
In a landmark year for feminism, interest from a younger generation as a result of societal changes in women’s rights have sparked a renewed interest in Judy Chicago as a pioneer of the feminist movement. Chicago is responsible for one of the most important artworks of the twentieth century, The Dinner Party (1974-79), an installation celebrating women’s achievements in Western culture in the form of a meticulously executed banquet table set for 39 mythical and historical women and honoring 999 others. The work is permanently housed at the Brooklyn Museum as the centerpiece of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. On her inclusion in the TIME 100 list, Chicago says, “It is ironic that after all these years, where I was once critiqued I am now being lauded. My goal has been to make a contribution to a more equitable world through art and I am honored and thrilled that my work is being recognized now by TIME. I am grateful to all those who have supported me on this long and challenging journey.”
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Judy Chicago has teamed up with Prospect NY to design a fabulous line of housewares inspired by her monumental work, The Dinner Party. In addition to recreations of four iconic plates, Prospect NY has created two pillow cases based on the Entryway Banners and a silk scarf depicting the Margaret Sanger runner. Coming soon will be a puzzle of the Heritage Floor, the ceramic tiled base for The Dinner Party inscribed with the names of 999 influential women. These new products for the home enable greater access to Judy Chicago's work and furthers her goal to educate a broad and diverse audience about women's history.
"Then there’s our cover star, Judy Chicago, a medium- and genre-defying artist who, at 78, is and will be the subject of a number of major solo gallery and museum shows over the next 18 months. The past year saw her most celebrated work, the monumental (in all senses) “The Dinner Party” (1979) — a vulvic-inspired table with ceramic plates for 39 women from across the centuries, from Sappho to Virginia Woolf — become a pop-cultural touchstone, a visual shorthand for women’s exclusion from the annals of history and a revisionist fantasy: Here, literally, was their place at the table. " -HANYA YANAGIHARA
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Due March 1, 2018
Through the Flower invites artists, scholars and educators to apply for the annual award named in honor of Judy Chicago, one of the Feminist Art Movement’s key founders.The Judy Chicago Art Education Award, supported by author Faye Kellerman, includes a printed certificate and $1,000, to be given to the project selected by jurors representing the three institutions that house content comprising the Judy Chicago Portal.
Click the link below for submission details!
7pm, Thursday, January 18, 2018
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor
Judy Chicago sits down with sociologist and writer Sarah Thornton to discuss the process and challenges of creating Chicago’s iconic and ambitious work The Dinner Party, highlighted in our exhibition Roots of "The Dinner Party": History in the Making.
*Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum
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January 10, 2018–March 03, 2018
SALON 94 BOWERY
243 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
From 1982 through 1987, the celebrated and iconic feminist artist, Judy Chicago, created a body of work examining the gender construct of masculinity. In a series of drawings, paintings, cast paper and bronze pieces, she explored how prevailing definitions of power have affected the world in general — and men in particular. More than thirty years after Chicago completed PowerPlay, Salon 94 is proud to present a select group of works from this prescient series in Chicago’s inaugural exhibition with the gallery.
For ten years now, Judy Chicago’s 20th-century masterpiece The Dinner Party has been on permanent view at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art in the Brooklyn Museum. It’s become such a fixture there that it is hard to imagine the shock and vitriol the piece caused when it was first displayed in 1979, after four years and hundreds of hands went into its production. The Dinner Party went against so many mores, even by progressive art-world standards: it was overtly political, its content directly championing women’s rights and liberation; it was constructed not by an auteur but by a community; it was comprised of ceramics and needlepoint, “decorative arts” associated with feminine domesticity. Chicago’s sculpture was—and is—radical, correcting the boldfaced names of history while inspiring a new way of conceiving open, activist art production. Amid the straightforward concept of 39 increasingly vaginal place settings, each reserved for a different groundbreaking woman, Chicago and her team filled the triangular structure with so many symbols and allusions that the reading of the work never stops. (Each side of the triangle, for instance, holds 13 place settings, which is the same number of seats at both The Last Supper and of witches in a coven.)
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Smart Museum of Art
University of Chicago
November 4, 2017
6:00 pm
Judy Chicago and fellow artist, Jayna Zweiman, originator of the "pussy hat" will explore how political activism is manifested in various forms, particularly in community-based projects that confront contemporary social and political issues.
The talk is moderated by Alison Gass, Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum
Advanced registration is required
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY
October 19, 2017
5-6pm
Join us as we celebrate art and feminism at this special gala featuring the 2017 Sackler Center First Awards, honoring Judy Chicago.
Also honoring: Deborah Berke, Shirley Chisholm (posthumous), Jodi Archambault Gillette, Judith Jamison, Carol Jenkins, Roberta Kaplan, Kathy Kusner, Rita Moreno, Our Bodies Ourselves, Ruth Simmons, Edie Windsor
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October 20, 2017 - March 4, 2018
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY
The Brooklyn Museum will host an extensive exhibition of rarely seen archival, process, and documentary material created during the making of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. This exhibition is a unique opportunity to view Chicago's seminal work, permanently housed at the Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, alongside the historical documents, test materials, and ephemera which tell the story of this monumental artwork.
September 17, 2017 - January 5, 2018
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Washington, D.C.
NMWA presents, Inside the Dinner Party Studio, and exhibition exploring the studio environment during the creation of Judy Chicago's monumental work, The Dinner Party through archives, documentation, and film.
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September 8 - October 28, 2017
Jessica Silverman Gallery
San Francisco, CA
On view at the Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco, September 8 - October 28.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Judy Chicago will be in conversation with writer, Sarah Thornton, in an event titled, "Pussy Power," held at the JCC in San Francisco on September 10th at 7 pm.
Judy Chicago's Pussiespresents works ranging from 1964 to 2004. Judy Chicago's work has long been associated with images of pussy power as a visual metaphor for female agency, even before the term was widely accepted. What is less well known are her images of cats. This exhibition is the first to trace the long a fascinating overlap between her broad ranging, beautiful "central core" imagery and her eccentric feline iconography.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington DC is proud to announce the creation of the Judy Chicago Visual Archive at the museum’s Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center. The archive will document Chicago’s career through photographs, slides, negatives and printed ephemera. These materials span the 1960s through the present and capture fleeting performance pieces such as her pyrotechnics and dry ice works, as well as exhibitions of drawings, paintings, sculpture and installations, including The Dinner Party. The visual archive will be an essential resource for researchers.
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Judy Chicago was invited by Tate Liverpool to be one of 13 artists, musicians, and performers from the UK and abroad, each tasked with representing one of the tracks on the Beatles' seminal album, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as part of a city-wide celebration of the album's 50th anniversary. For her assigned song, "Fixing A Hole," Judy designed a 40 foot high mural that was painted on the side of the monumental White Tomkins and Courage Grain Silo at Stanley Dock in Liverpool.
On April 26th, Judy Chicago and a team of event assistants from across the US, built the artist's fourth dry ice installation, this time at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as part of the museum's celebration of their new building. The piece, titled "Be No More", was constructed during an all-day build with more than 20 tons (40,000 pounds) of dry ice and illuminated with hundreds of road flares. Throughout the day and into the evening, thousands of onlookers were attracted to the installation which spelled out the word "truth" as a metaphor for a new and disturbing reality in the U.S., the idea of alternative facts. In the evening, the word was lit from within with pink flares, which turned the entire environment a pearly pink. After dark, there was a second lighting which caused the brightly lit word to be reflected in the adjacent glass wall of the museum. Then, the lights faded and slowly, the ice sublimated (or disappeared). But for a short time—as she has done throughout her career—Judy Chicago attempted to speak truth to power.
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Chad Alligood, curator at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, gave a lively presentation on Judy Chicago's minimalist works. A Q & A followed with Chad and Judy. Over 300 people viewed the talk sponsored by WISC (Women's International Study Center) held at the Form and Concept Gallery in Santa Fe. Chad was in residence at WISC to draft an essay for an upcoming monograph on Judy Chicago to be published by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. This volume will offer new scholarship on a variety of specialized topics throughout the artist’s career.
Judy Chicago's works are featured in Jessica Silverman Gallery's booth at the Art Los Angeles Contemporary art fair. January 27, 28, and 29, Booth C3. The Barker Hangar, Santa Monica, CA
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January 12 - 15, 2017: Judy Chicago's work was featured in the Jessica Silverman Gallery's booth at FOG Design + Art Fair in San Francisco. The works on display are vintage pieces from the 1970's and 1980's including domes and "Creation" scrolls which were made at Magnolia Press in the Bay area.
Judy Chicago's work was featured in Salon 94's booth at Frieze Masters at Regent’s Park, London, UK, October 6 – 9, 2016.
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Judy Chicago's 1983 work Earth Birth from the Birth Project was showcased in Salon 94's Frieze New York booth. The New York gallery, founded by Jeanne Greenberg-Rohatyn, represents Judy Chicago. The work received accolades in both the New York Times and ARTnews art reviews. In ARTnews, Andrew Russeth writes, "Probably the biggest surprise of the fair for me, literally and figuratively: Judy Chicago's Earth Birth, 1983. This beauty is 6 feet tall and 11 feet long, and it explodes off the wall while also sucking you in. It was at the booth of Salon 94, which is now showing Chicago." Image courtesy of Salon 94, New York
Frieze week in London: Judy Chicago was interviewed by curator, critic, and art historian, Hans Ulrich Obrist, for the Transformation Marathon.
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Curated by renowned feminist curator Xabier Arakistain and drawing from works across Chicago’s career, this exhibition both celebrates Chicago's oeuvre and challenges the ongoing institutional resistance to her work. The exhibition opened at Azkuna Zentroa in Bilbao, Spain, and is currently on view at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain in Bordeaux, France, through September 4th, 2016!
This groundbreaking reassessment of Pop Art surveyed global engagements with Pop, its origins and its socio-political underpinnings. The exhibition brought together three of Chicago’s seminal Car Hoods.
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In her latest book, Chicago discusses her own art pedagogy and proposes ways that studio art education can be improved for the current generation of artists. Tackling such topics as sexism and bias that many young artists face, this radical and constructive critique is a must-read for a new perspective on studio art education.
"I want to translate particular experiences into universal observations" -- Judy Chicago
Chicago's series Heads Up includes watercolors, sketches, two-dimensional painted glass and three-dimensional cast glass and ceramic heads. Chicago worked on the series from 2007 - 2013, and the work debuted at David Richard Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2014.
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To celebrate her seventy-fifth birthday, Judy Chicago drew inspiration from her earliest explorations of feminist imagery to create a monumental pyrotechnic performance piece, A Butterfly for Brooklyn, in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on April 26th, 2014. The site-specific work measuring approximately 200 feet wide by 180 feet high levitated and swirled before 12,000 viewers. Presented by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in partnership with Prospect Park Alliance, with major funding from Barbara and Eric Dobkin, the project was an outdoor component of the exhibition Chicago in L. A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Work, 1962-1974 at the Sackler Center at the Brooklyn Museum.
A series of exhibitions and events are held around the country at various institutions and galleries including the Palmer Museum at Penn State University, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, David Richard Gallery in Santa Fe, and Redline in Denver.
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Mana Contemporary and Nyehaus presented this major survey of key works from Chicago’s career and one of the select nationwide exhibitions and events celebrating the artist’s 75th birthday.
Chicago's early work was showcased by Riflemaker Gallery and Nyehaus for Frieze Masters London.
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This solo exhibition at Nye + Brown in Culver City. California, showcased Judy Chicago's early abstract works from the '60s, as well a comprehensive survey of works made while Judy Chicago was living in Los Angeles between 1961-1973. Tim Nye and Lexi Brown commissioned Judy Chicago to create an entirely new fireworks piece for the opening, titled The Deflowering of Nye + Brown. Working with Pyro Spectaculars, Chicago framed the gallery entrance with a series of petal forms that ignited and burst into rhythmic explosions.
In early 2011, the Museum of Art and Design in New York presented the first survey of Judy Chicago’s work in tapestry which dates back to the mid 1970’s. This body of art - woven by Chicago’s long-time collaborator, Audrey Cowan - was gifted to the museum by Audrey and her husband Bob.
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Judy Chicago was actively involved in Pacific Standard Time, a Getty funded initiative involving almost every institution from Santa Barbara to San Diego, documenting and celebrating Southern California art from 1945-1980, more than 20 of which years, Chicago was working in Los Angeles. Chicago’s work was exhibited in eight museum shows (including the Getty, LAMOCA, Otis Art Institute, the Pomona College Art Museum and the Pasadena Museum of California Art). Chicago kicked off the Getty PST Performance Festival with the restaging of two events, Sublime Environment (a dry ice installation) and A Butterfly for Brooklyn, the first fireworks piece Chicago created since 1974.
Penn State University acquired Judy Chicago's art education archive, now housed in the University Archives in the Special Collections Library on campus, as well as online. The Judy Chicago Art Education Collection is a living archive on feminist art education.
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Written by Judy Chicago with art historian Frances Borzello, Face to Face: Frida Kahlo has handpicked a selection of Kahlo's work, a hundred portraits that speak to the full spectrum of women's experience. The result is a fascinating conversation between two artistic icons.
Through the Flower made available The Dinner Party curriculum aimed at K-12 school teachers, created by Chicago in collaboration with Dr. Constance Gee, a well-known art educator, who brought together a select group of curriculum writers. A summer workshop program to train art teachers in The Dinner Party curriculum is offered at Kutztown University.
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The Dinner Party opened in its new permanent housing at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in a specially designed exhibition space, created along with an educational database, ancillary exhibitions and programs. Also, in conjunction with the opening of the Sackler Center and The Dinner Party, Global Feminisms opened at the museum, an exhibition curated by Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin, the renowned art historian. This exhibit demonstrated the global impact of the Feminist Art Movement that Chicago helped initiate in the early seventies when she went to Fresno to create a Feminist Art Practice.
WACK: Art and the Feminist Revolution, curated by Connie Butler, opened at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. This was the first major survey of Feminist art, chronicling the revolutionary art movement that ushered in a historic change, i.e. the first time women were able to openly work out of their experiences as women.
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Chicago in Glass opened at LewAllen Contemporary in Santa Fe, a survey of Chicago’s two and three dimensional work in stained glass, fused, cast, etched and painted glass. Chicago explored this new media and transformed a challenging technique into a vehicle for personal expression. She continues to work in glass, particularly cast and kiln fired glass painting.
Chicago premiered KittyCity: A Feline Book of Hours, a series of watercolors that were also collected in a lavishly illustrated book based upon a traditional Book of Hours but in this instance, chronicling a day in the life of the Chicago/Woodman’s household, which was home to six cats. In conjunction with the publication of the book and exhibitions around the country, Chicago worked with animal rescue agencies around the country to do cat adoptions.
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Chicago returned to teaching, doing semester long project classes, that culminated in exhibitions, at institutions around the country, including: Indiana University, Bloomington, IN; Duke University, Durham, NC; Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, KY; Cal-Poly, Pomona, CA; and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Several films were made about her unique teaching methods which had their roots in the Feminist art programs of the 1970’s. In 2001, she began team-teaching with Donald Woodman, which allowed her to extend her feminist-based pedagogy to include men.
Chicago and Woodman moved into the Belen Hotel in Belen, New Mexico, a historic railroad hotel on the National Register of Historic Places, after a three-year renovation/restoration by Woodman. This is the first home of their own either of them has ever had.
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Judy Chicago published the second volume of her autobiography, which unabashedly probes the issues of gender, power and history that also characterize her monumental works, and asks hard questions about art in our culture.
Chicago's archives are housed at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, which documents the lives of women of the past and present for the future. Chicago recalled the first time she visited the library, "I was so overwhelmed I burst into tears because we have so few institutions of our own.”
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From 1994 to 2000, Chicago created a series of painted and needleworked images re-interpreting traditional proverbs for a multi-cultural future with a select group of needleworkers in the project Resolutions: A Stitch in Time. Described by renowned British art writer Edward Lucie-Smith in his 1999 monograph, Judy Chicago: An American Vision, as a “post-modern project that subverts the traditions of both needlework and proverbs.” The exhibition was curated by David Revere McFadden, senior curator at the Museum of Art and Design in NY, where it premiered in 2000, subsequently traveling to museums in the U.S. and Canada.
Through the Flower moved from Benicia, California, to New Mexico, starting a series of public programs and art workshops. It is headquartered in Belen, New Mexico. Currently, Through the Flower has refocused its activities so that it can fulfill its mission to educate a broad public about the importance of art and its power in countering the erasure of women’s achievements through providing resource and research materials through our institutional partners.
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From 1985 -1993, Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman worked on the Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light, a journey into the darkness of the Holocaust which resulted in an exhibition that combined painting and photography to explore the meaning of the Holocaust in a contemporary context. It is introduced by a monumental tapestry suggesting that the Holocaust grew out of the ‘fabric’ of Western Civilization and concludes with a large stained glass installation, Rainbow Shabbat: A Vision for the Future.
After a whirlwind romance, Judy Chicago and photographer Donald Woodman married. Their wedding was officiated by a female rabbi, and they explored Jewish tradition together and learned about their Jewish heritage. Judy Chicago's Merger Poem was sung at the ceremony.
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From 1982-1987, Judy Chicago worked on the series PowerPlay, an examination of the construct of masculinity in drawings, paintings, sculptures, weavings, cast paper and bronze.
Chicago settled in Benicia, California, to start the Birth Project (1980-85), a series of painted and needle-worked images celebrating creation and the glory and pain of the birth experience, the joy and challenges of pregnancy and the sense of entrapment that often accompanies the satisfaction of giving life. Mary Ross coordinated the collaborative effort over the five years it took to create. Through the Flower moved into an 11,000-square-foot building in Benicia’s industrial park. Unlike The Dinner Party (1974-79), where needleworkers gathered at Chicago's studio, Birth Project volunteers worked at home, periodically visiting Benicia for reviews. Chicago also traveled around the country, visiting the volunteers to review their work at their homes.
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The Dinner Party (1974-79) opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with the support of Museum Director Henry Hopkins. Feminist programs and activities accompanied the opening, marking the first time a mainstream museum opened its doors to feminist culture. Opening night drew 5,000 people; more than 100,000 people viewed the work during its three-month run. For the most part, the art press was outraged by the butterfly/vagina imagery but that was lost in the avalanche of popular media. In 1980, The Dinner Party re-opened at the Clearlake campus of the University of Houston, thanks to the efforts of Mary Ross Taylor who became the administrator of Chicago's nonprofit, Through the Flower. Under the guidance of exhibit administrator Diane Gelon, The Dinner Party began an unprecedented, grassroots-fueled worldwide tour to six countries, three continents and was seen by more than one million people.
In 1978, Chicago established Through the Flower, a 501(c) non-profit corporation to manage the avalanche of small donations supporting The Dinner Party’s completion. Its original mission of providing a fiscal structure for donations to help complete The Dinner Party quickly evolved, and soon Through the Flower began to organize the worldwide exhibition tour that brought The Dinner Party to sixteen venues in six countries and three continents to over one million viewers. Through the Flower has supported numerous projects since its inception. Through the Flower's mission is to educate a broad public about the importance of art and its power in countering the erasure of women’s achievements.
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Doubleday published Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist in March. It subsequently was published in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Japan and Taiwan.
Chicago firmed up her vision of The Dinner Party (1974-79), a symbolic history of women in Western civilization, as a triangular shaped table with 39 place settings, 13 plates to a side, and spanning time from the mythical Primordial Goddess to women in Twentieth Century.
Chicago stopped teaching to work on The Dinner Party (1974-79). She conceived of the work as a reinterpretation of The Last Supper from “the point of view of those who’ve done the cooking throughout history." Her butterfly motif images would rise off the plates, symbolizing women’s struggle for freedom.
Hundreds of volunteers joined The Dinner Party production crew. All total, 400 men and women worked on the installation, from needleworkers to industrial designers, as well as 20 researchers who helped compile the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.
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Chicago created A Butterfly for Oakland out of 200 road flares outlining a butterfly, to be lit at sunset. A Butterfly for Oakland shimmered for 17 minutes on the shore of Lake Merritt as part of a "Sculpture in the City" project by the Oakland Museum.
Chicago collaborated with art historian Arlene Raven and designer Sheila de Bretteville to open the Feminist Studio Workshop and Woman’s Building, a public center for women's culture, in Los Angeles in 1973. Five-thousand people came to the opening. Judy Chicago, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and Arlene Raven are pictured.
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America’s sexual revolution was in full swing and Chicago poured her energy into her art, delving deeper into expressing the range of female experiences that are emblematic of her work. In 1973, Chicago spray painted such landmark works as Through the Flower, Heaven is for White Men Only and Let It All Hang Out. In addition, Chicago began writing Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist.”
Intrigued by a hand-painted porcelain plate she saw at an antique store, Chicago began studying china painting. Not one for painting rose buds, Chicago eventually found a mentor, Rosemarie Radmaker, who appreciated her desire to apply this fusion of color to a glazed porcelain surface for her own images.
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Chicago moved the Feminist Art Program to the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) and began team teaching with Miriam Schapiro. The 21 women in the program renovated a dilapidated old house at 553 Mariposa Avenue in Hollywood. They worked non-stop for three months, repairing the house as well as creating their revolutionary installations. Womanhouse is the first openly female-centered art installation in contemporary art, and attracted wide media publicity as well as more than 10,000 people during its one-month run.
In the spring, Chicago joined the faculty at Fresno State College to teach a women’s-only art program. She encouraged her students to communicate their experiences as women through their art, a ground-breaking and radical idea at the time. With hammers, saws and power tools in hand, the women renovated an old community theater into a 5,000-square-foot studio of their own. In 1971, Chicago wrote in her personal journal about her content-based approach to teaching art: “I want to begin to establish regular contact with the growth of the first Feminist Art ever attempted.” In her entry, she renamed her course the “Feminist Art Program.”
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In December, Artforum ran a full-page ad of Chicago posing like a pugilist in a boxing ring. The Fullerton show debuted Chicago's large, donut-shaped Pasadena Lifesavers, a series of 15 sprayed acrylic lacquer paintings on Plexiglas. Photograph by Jerry McMillan.
Gerowitz (Chicago) legally changed her name, which she announced in an ad for her solo show at Cal State Fullerton in the October Artforum magazine: “Judy Gerowitz hereby divests herself of all names imposed upon her through male social dominance and freely chooses her own name: Judy Chicago.”
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Through 1968 through 1974, Judy Gerowitz (Chicago) expanded her experimentation with altering environments with her work in flares and fireworks. Gerowitz (Chicago) enlisted her friends to travel all over Southern California and release colored smokes into the air in an attempt to “feminize” the atmosphere. She called these works Atmospheres.
The year began with Judy Gerowitz's (Chicago's) first solo show at Rolf Nelson Gallery. In April, Rainbow Pickett – named after soul singer Wilson Pickett – was featured in the Primary Structures show at New York’s Jewish Museum. Gerowitz (Chicago) was one of only a few women showing at this major minimalist exhibition, and Rainbow Pickett made Time Magazine’s review.
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Judy Gerowitz (Chicago) earned her master's degree in painting and sculpture from UCLA and was exhibiting in the nascent and extremely macho L.A. art scene. To learn how to spray paint, she enrolled in an auto body school, the only woman in the class of 250.
Judy Gerowitz (Chicago) was widowed one month before she turned 24, when Jerry Gerowitz died in an automobile accident. They had married in the spring of 1961. She moved to Santa Monica and turned to her work -- large paintings on Masonite.
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Judy Cohen (Chicago) enrolled at UCLA where she majored in art and minored in humanities. The professor of Cohen's (Chicago's) Intellectual History of Europe class stated that women have made no contributions to history, igniting Cohen (Chicago) to search to prove him wrong, and eventually resulting in The Dinner Party).
Judy Cohen's (Chicago's) father, Arthur Cohen, died from complications during surgery for an infected ulcer five days before her 14th birthday. Devastated, Cohen (Chicago) took refuge in her art.
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At age eight, Judy Cohen (Chicago) began attending the Chicago Art Institute Junior School. She studied under the legendary, and beloved, teacher Emmanuel Jacobson, whose classical technique stresses still-life drawing and anatomy of animals as well as humans. She attended his weekly art classes for the next 10 years.
Judy Cohen's (Chicago's) art received recognition from her pre-school teacher, who told Mrs. Cohen that her four-year-old daughter has talent. In 1945, Mrs. Cohen enrolled Chicago in Saturday classes at the Chicago Art Institute.
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Judith Sylvia Cohen, was born on July 20, 1939 to May and Arthur Cohen in Chicago, Illinois. She started drawing at age three. Cohen's (Chicago's) mother, a former dancer, encouraged her art. And her father, a political activist and labor organizer, valued equality and justice, which he instilled in his daughter.
