Judy Chicago Bigamy Hood 1965/2011 Sprayed automotive lacquer on 1965 Corvair Car Hood, 48 1/2″ x 52″ x 3″ Photo: courtesy of Donald Woodman
November sees a series of JUDY CHICAGO exhibitions and events in the UK for the first time since 1985.
Judy Chicago is an artist, writer and activist whose work set the agenda for women’s art over the past five decades. A pioneering force who came to prominence in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, she helped re-shape the male-dominated art landscape by creating innovative work from a woman’s perspective – reacting to social and political injustice during revolutionary times.
Her art and her ideas continue to exert a palpable influence on generations of women artists who came after. In 2011 her contribution was recognised and in some ways rediscovered during Pacific Standard Time, the California-wide celebration of the history of the L.A. Art Scene which saw sixty cultural institutions collaborate in one six-month long initiative (www.pacificstandardtime.org/) and featured work across various media by Judy Chicago. The artist is widely represented in museums and public collections worldwide.
November 2012 sees Chicago exhibiting in London for the first time since 1985.
Tonight Monday 12th November 2012 Riflemaker will show paintings and sculpture from as early as 1963, a decade before the artist co-founded the influential feminist art programmes at California State University, Fresno, and CalArts which led to Womanhouse, the world’s first large-scale public feminist art installation.
Judy Chicago The Dinner Party installed in its permanent home at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.© Judy Chicago, 1979 Mixed media, 48’x42’x3′ Photo © Donald Woodman
The Riflemaker exhibition also includes a rarely seen test plate and runner drawing for The Dinner Party (1974-79), a symbolic history of women in western civilisation, which has now been seen by over one million visitors. The Dinner Party is on permanent display at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.
Also included in The Riflemaker show will be the iconic Car Hood sets along with works in plastics, ceramics and glass, demonstrating the artist’s broad range of technical and aesthetic skills.
www.riflemaker.org/
JUDY CHICAGO: (b. 1939 Chicago, Illinois)
One of the pioneers of Feminist art in the 1970’s and a major figure in contemporary art, Judy Chicago articulated her feminist vision not only as an artist, but also as an author and educator, most notably founding the Feminist Art Program at California State University, Fresno, as well as facilitating the first major feminist installation and performance space, Womanhouse.
Other JUDY CHICAGO events exhibitions:
November 13: opening of the Judy Chicago exhibition at the Ben Uri Gallery, London, which will include intimate works on paper, set in a historic context.
November 14: Whitechapel Art Gallery, Judy Chicago in conversation with Frances Borzello and Andrew Perchuk.
The book: JUDY CHICAGO
Lund Humphries (published October 2012) 200pp, edited by Rachel Dickson, Head of Curatorial Services at Ben Uri. Featuring contributions by:
Judy Batalion – Canadian art historian and writer who discusses Judy Chicago and ‘memoir’. Frances Borzello – art historian and writer, who presents an overview of Chicago’s artistic career. Borzello co- authored with Chicago the publication Frida Kahlo: Face to Face in 2010.
Her latest book, The Naked Nude, a look at the contemporary nude, will be published by Thames & Hudson later this year. Diane Gelon – original administrator for the Dinner Party UK tour, 1984-85, writes on the history and background to the UK tour Alexandra Kokoli – Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, writes on Chicago and the other artists on display from current feminist academic perspective. Andrew Perchuk – Deputy Director, Getty Research Institute in California, writes on Chicago’s early works in California in
the1960s – early 1970s.
