San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The public flocked to her work; critics sneered. But that was then
In a world reverberating from the societal tidal waves of #MeToo, Kamala Harris’ historic vice presidential victory and a revitalized women’s movement, it feels like culture has caught up with Judy Chicago.
Throughout her career, the 82-year-old artist has been both celebrated and maligned for her work across media that challenges notions about gender and the role of women in history. Looking at some of Chicago’s most well-known projects, you can see the building blocks for this current era of art and activism.
There’s “Womanhouse,” the ongoing series of collaborative exhibition and performance spaces that first showcased feminist art in 1972 at the California Institute for the Arts. Then there are the life-and-death themes of her “Birth” and “Holocaust” projects — the latter of which was criticized for its intersectional approach.
But undeniably, it is “The Dinner Party,” an epic installation of 39 place settings representing real and mythological women, that best shows the polarized reaction to Chicago. Its 1979 debut at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art brought enthusiastic crowds but also sexist derision from critics who dismissed the work. New York Times critic Hilton Kramer called it “an
outrageous libel on the female imagination.”
“It became a visible symbol for everybody who had ever been erased,” Chicago tells The Chronicle in a video call from the home in Belen, N.M. that she shares with her husband, photographer Donald Woodman.
In the 42 years since, it’s a work she’s either had to live up to or live down the response to, depending on the audience.
“It was like I lived two lives,” she says. “In the art world I was s—, but in this larger world there was this everexpanding audience for whatever I did.”
This month, Chicago’s impact on culture beyond that landmark work will be on view around the Bay Area. In addition to the publication of her autobiography, “The Flowering” (Chicago’s 14th book), a confluence of exhibitions offers viewers a unique chance to immerse themselves in her art.
At the center is the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s retrospective of Chicago, opening Aug. 28 at the de Young. Curated by Claudia Schmuckli, this first major retrospective of Chicago spans the 1960s to the present and includes 130 paintings, prints, drawings, ceramic sculptures and films, as well as personal ephemera.
“Judy Chicago: A Retrospective” was originally scheduled to coincide with the centenary of women’s suffrage in the United States in 2020. The pandemic delay, however, now allows it to coincide with Chicago’s solo show “Human Geometries” at the Jessica Silverman Gallery (opening Aug. 27), as well as in the Berkeley Art Museum-Pacific Film Archive’s “New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century” (opening Aug. 28.).
“Judy Chicago: Cohanim” is part of the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s “Experience Leonard Cohen” exhibition series on view now.
“It’s quite serendipitous,” Chicago says of the timing. “It’s allowing people to not only learn about the reality of my life and what a struggle I’ve had, but to do so in light of this complete re-evaluation of my career that’s instigated by Claudia’s exhibition.”
Chicago cites “the tools that have always been used against women in art being used against me: erasure, marginalization, only showing part of my work,” especially in relation to “The Dinner Party.” But her work has shown she is ultimately an artist who transcends any one project, and who has become a symbol of sea change.
As author and activist Gloria Steinem says in her introduction to “The Flowering”: “I can divide my life into before and after Judy Chicago.”
Before the international recognition of “The Dinner Party,” the woman born Judy Cohen renamed herself, nodding to her city of birth. In a famous ad in ArtForum in 1970, she announced, “Judy Gerowitz hereby divests herself of all names imposed upon her through male social dominance and chooses her own name, Judy Chicago.” It was an act of self-creation following an identity crisis after the death of her first husband, Jerry Gerowitz, that has parallels to how some 21st century artists now imbue identity and chosen names in their work.