Until I stood before it in the Brooklyn Museum, I didn’t understand it fully. I had seen individual plates in books and on the internet, I had read Chicago’s biography where she describes the process of making it and showing it, but until I saw and felt it in its wholeness, I had not experienced Judy Chicago’s groundbreaking feminist art installation called The Dinner Party.
Read a full review by Theresa Dintino
The Dinner Party, by Judy Chicago, is an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in twentieth-century art.
The Biblical, The Last Supper led Chicago to think about the women throughout history haven’t had any ‘suppers of salience’ (not until the witches of American Horror Story and Ariana Grande, anyway). Instead they host/attend dinner parties *cue condescending shoulder pat*.
This installation comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history.
The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored.
The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table.
Waltzing With Matilda's 