NOREEN MCGONIGLE NOREEN MCGONIGLE NOREEN MCGONIGLE NOREEN MCGONIGLE NOREEN MCGONIGLE 51 Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party: Contextualizing the Critical Reaction Cohen. At the age of five, her passion for the he Dinner Party [fig. 1], the arts was sparked through art classes she took Tground-breaking, feminist, over-life- at the Art Institute of Chicago. From then size installation sculpture, is a monumental on, she embraced a life devoted to the arts. fusion of decorative and fine arts, operat- She would continue her training at the Art ing as a symbolic tribute to the history of Institute of Chicago but would complete her women completed in 1979 by the artist Judy Bachelor of Arts at the University of Califor- Chicago and her collaborative team. Since nia, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1962. She went its conception, The Dinner Party sparked on to earn her Master of Fine Arts from controversy across the nation. It was first UCLA in 1964. She married Jerry Gerowitz exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of in 1961, but their marriage was short lived Modern Art (S.F.M.O.M.A) in 1979 and its due to a fatal car accident in 1963, resulting subsequent history has been chockfull of re- in his death. After receiving her masters, she jection and condemnation. These sentiments began to establish herself in the art world would remain largely unchanged in the crit- under her married name, Judy Gerowitz. ical literature until 2002, when The Dinner Her early works consisted of practicing typ- Party was included in a special exhibition ical styles of the time, which included spray at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. During its painting and minimalist painting along with re-exhibition, The Dinner Party was over- various sculpting techniques. whelmingly embraced by critics and viewers around the globe. This shift in critical reac- Feeling unfulfilled and underwhelmed by tion experienced by The Dinner Party from her works and the path her career was tak- 1979 and 2002 can be traced and understood ing, she began making changes. By 1969, she through historical contextualization and the joined the faculty at California State Univer- reviews of art critics. sity in Fresno where she established the first Feminist Art Education Program. In 1970, Judy Chicago, artist, educator, feminist, and she changed her name to Judy Chicago as intellectual, was born in Chicago, Illinois on an overt act against the traditional western July 20, 1939 under the name Judy Sylvia naming culture, in which a woman was ex- 52 pected to take the last name of her husband.1 porcelain with the names of 999 women from mythology to history inscribed in gold Chicago and, Miriam Schapiro, another art- luster. Chicago says that “the floor is the ist, elected to relocate the Feminist Art Pro- foundation of the piece, a re-creation of the gram to the California Institute of the Arts fragmented parts of our heritage, and, like in Valencia, California where they would the place settings themselves, a statement also join the faculty. The new program about the condition of women”.5 The names launched many interesting projects. Wom- were selected to represent a range of nation- anhouse (1972), the most prominent of all of alities, experiences, and accomplishments. the projects, was a series of installations that The floor acts as a structural and metaphori- “explored the postwar ideal of feminine do- cal support for the table. mesticity” in fantasy-like environments.2 A year later, Chicago, along with art historian The three wings of the table form an equilat- Arlene Raven and designer Sheila de Brette- eral triangle, with thirty-nine place settings ville, co-founded the Women’s Building in intended to represent thirty-nine individual Los Angeles.3 She established an organiza- women of history evenly distributed across tion called Through the Flower in 1978 as the wings. Each wing includes thirteen place a way to help enable the completion of her settings as a reference to the thirteen attend- most ambitious work to that point, The Din- ees at the Last Supper. The thirty-nine wom- ner Party. She went on to create several more en included were selected based on their works of art, including Birth Project (1980- actual accomplishments and their spiritual/ 1985) and the Holocaust Project (1985-1993), legendary powers. The place settings are the which similarly use art to analyze and inter- most significant component of The Dinner rogate history. Furthermore, she has written Party. The tables are covered with linens and several books including Through the Flower meet at each corner with an embroidered and The Dinner Party: From Creation to Pres- cloth. They are all set on an embroidered ervation. She and her career are still thriving runner with a ceramic gold chalice, utensils, in 2018 and she continues to be a champion embroidered napkin, and a china-paint- of women’s rights. ed plate. Each wing is separated into three categories based on historical time periods. Chicago began work on The Dinner Party in Wing one encompasses prehistory, starting 1974 after attending a real-life dinner party with the Primordial Goddess, continuing where it occurred to her that women had onto the development of Judaism, moving never had a Last Supper, like the one Jesus onto the societies of the early Greeks, and and his disciples celebrated.4 This evolved ending with the Roman Empire; wing two into a massive multi-media installation includes females who existed from early consisting of a three-winged, open, trian- Christianity to the Reformation; and finally, gular-shaped table, set within a dark room, wing three embodies strong figures from the amid six colorful tapestry banners [fig. 2]. American Revolution through the Women’s Each side spans forty-eight feet in length. Revolution, starting with Anne Hutchinson The table is resting on top of a raised floor, and ending with Georgia O’Keeffe. Every known as the “Heritage Floor,” [fig. 3] com- place setting is executed within the charac- prised of 2,300 tiles made of hand-cast teristics of the guest’s specific historical 53 context. resemble the traditional mosaic designs of the Byzantine era, in particular, this design One of the most discussed place settings alludes to the famous mosaic of “Theodora at the table is the Empress Theodora’s, the and Her Attendants” from 547 CE located in famous Byzantine empress and advocate of Ravenna, Italy in the Basilica of San Vitale. women. She was raised by her father, a train- They both use a gold, green, and purple er of animals, on the fringes of the Byzantine color scheme, which are traditionally im- Empire. After his passing, in order to sup- perial colors. The imagery on the plate “is port her family Theodora became an actress, a symmetrical abstract butterfly form, each a profession synonymous with prostitution wing stretching to the edge of the plate.”7 and highly reviled by Byzantine society. The wide stretching wings are representative Later she found Christianity and abandoned of her wide acceptance of women and all her former career as an actress.6 She met Jus- oppressed people. A basilica plan was the tinian I, the nephew of the Emperor Justin traditional architectural plan for churches in I and heir of the Byzantine Empire in 522. the Byzantine era; this plan is reflected in the Shortly after, they decided they wanted to get symmetry of the plate imagery along with married, but the laws prohibited him to mar- the Roman arch colonnade imbedded in ry an actress, even a former one. Justinian the upper wings. The plate rests on a runner had the law repealed and they were married embroidered with “a mosaic like halo.”8 A in 525. Theodora was crowned empress similar halo can be found in “Theodora and alongside Justinian in 527. Historically, it is Her Attendants” which creates a distinct known that Theodora and Justinian ruled parallel between the two works. Finally, her together as political and intellectual equals. name is embroidered in gold and the letter Theodora was a champion of women’s rights “T” portrays the dome of the Hagia Sophia as a result of the humiliation of women from 530 CE, one of Theodora’s most promi- she witnessed and experienced first-hand nent and celebrated architectural feats. during her career as an actress. As a result, she fought for the rights of all women. A few The cornerstone of each place setting is the of her undertakings, intended specifically painted china plates. Every plate is fourteen to improve the lives of prostitutes included inches in diameter and contains a central closing the brothels, establishing safe houses motif based on the butterfly and/or the for protection, and passing laws forbidding vulva. These forms are described by Chi- forced prostitution. Her other endeavors cago as central core imagery. This central for all women included passing laws to give motif was a critical aspect in the piece itself women more rights in divorce cases and and contributed directly to the reception of abolishing the law that allowed women to be the piece. Chicago explained her intentions killed for adultery. for this in her memoir Through the Flower: “I wanted to express what it was like to be Her exemplary life and achievements are organized around a central core, my vagina, represented by her place setting. The Byzan- that which made me a woman.”9 Thus for tine era is known for their intricate mosaic Chicago, central core imagery is the mak- designs, which can be found in Theodora’s ing of images that depict female sex organs.