Friday, June 16, 2006

Judy Chicago's 'The Dinner Party'

Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, after years in storage, will be moving to its permanent home at the Brooklyn Art Museum this coming March. No notice has been published on the website yet. However, there's a cool replication of Lady Liberty going on for a long-term installation.

Here are two articles about a 2002 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.

I had the privilege of viewing the original exhibition at the SF Museum of Art back in 1979 (back when the museum was housed in the SF Civic Center, before the erection of its new digs at Yerba Buena Center). It's breathtaking.
In March, 1979, The Dinner Party premiered at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where it attracted record crowds, helped to balance the museum's annual budget and catapulted Judy Chicago into a new level of fame. However, at the same time as people all over the country were clamoring to see The Dinner Party, museums were refusing to exhibit it, even those that had previously committed to shows. At the end of its first 'triumphant' exhibition, The Dinner Party went into storage, Judy Chicago went into shock and the many people involved in The Dinner Party studio scattered.
I have no doubt it will continue to have a great emotional impact upon viewers lo this quarter century later, even though women's rights have advanced much since then. I intend to make a pilgrimage.

Thanks to my friend Amy Luna Manderino for this tip.

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