Judy Chicago's Letting Go

Judy Chicago, a feminist icon who has drawn comparisons to Michelangelo for her work on the human figure, first found fame with an eclectic installation piece entitled The Dinner Party. Composed of a table set of 39 influential female figures, this iconic feminist artwork inspires--indeed imposes--the imagining of these women within the mind’s of each viewer. The multimedia, interdisciplinary piece incorporates ceramics for custom plates, as well as an embroidered rug with the names of powerful women Judy believed had been neglected in history. This piece was a turning point in Chicago’s career, priming her for her most expansive and controversial project: The Birth Project. This project came into fruition after Chicago recognized the lack of artwork portraying birth: a topic whose absence from western art and culture was surprising given the integral role it plays in life. The Birth Project is one of Chicago’s most iconic works, inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft; philosopher, writer and women’s rights advocate, as well as a guest at The Dinner Party and the author of  “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”. Chicago’s work on the project lasted five years, from 1980 to 1985. She created a body of work with over 80 pieces, created by 150 needleworkers from the U.S., Canada, and even New Zealand, who embroidered Chicago’s paintings. On the project, Chicago said in her 1985 book, “The content — birth, the essential female experience — [was] fused with needlework, a traditional form of women’s art … we were using needlework to openly express and honor our own experience through this unique form.” Chicago struggled with constant backlash during the beginning of her career, particularly with male audiences who found her work abrasive. Gender, as well as race, played a considerable factor in how audiences viewed and critiqued Chicago’s work. Though white women were marginalized in the 1980s due to the lack of employment opportunities, as well as being looked upon as sexual objects, women of color suffered oppression on a much greater scale and their voices were hardly ever heard.

Chicago, now a household name is celebrated for her never wavering belief in upholding women’s rights, was not always as widely accepted. Now, her art is displayed all over the world, and has even found its way into a collaboration with Dior, in Dior x Judy Chicago: The Female Divine. To me, Chicago’s latest venture into fashion in partnership with Dior marks a full circle moment in her career. Fashion, like needleworking, has been deemed ‘silly’, and domestic- words reserved for women. Chicago’s initial plight of changing needleworking from a ‘female and domestic’ art into a high- art form began in her work of The Dinner Party. Yet, her lesser known series The Birth Project, puts needleworking at the center stage. She employed women from all around the world to help in this massive quilting effort, employing women who otherwise did not work. So progressive for her time, one of her critics even said, “Somehow she's persuaded hundreds of women, many of them housewives, to view themselves as artists.”  The ultimate testament to Chicago’s plight to making needlework a fine art is shown through price. We all know the statistic of women being severely underpaid for the same work as a man, thus the prices of the Birth Series state that needleworking is a fine art as a fact; it attaches a price tag making undeniably worth something. Chicago’s venture into fashion marks a ‘letting go’- she no longer needs to fight for her work to be seen as ‘serious’ art, and because of her expansive career has gained the ability to do something undeniably feminine, and less serious. To me, Chicago’s collaboration with Dior is a celebration of how far her work has come, giving her permission to engage in the feminine art forms as a collaborator rather. The couture show took place in Paris, and the room was decorated in three foot tall banners with phrases like, “What if women ruled the world?” “ Would God Be Female?” embroidered on them. 

Earlier in her career, Chicago often found herself on the defense- constantly needing to defend and prove her place as an artist. Her ability to move into the more playful world of fashion shows her ability to step out of the defensive and lean into the fun and perhaps frivolous.