Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago
Birth name	Judith Sylvia Cohen
Born	July 20, 1939(1939-07-20) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Field	Installation Painting Sculpture
Movement	Contemporary Feminist art
Works	The Dinner Party
Patrons	Holly Harp Elizabeth A. Sackler
Influenced by	Gerda Lerner

Judy Chicago is an American feminist artist and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces which examine the role of women in history and culture. Born in Chicago, Illinois, as Judith Cohen, she would change her name after the death of her father and her first husband, choosing to disconnect from the idea of male dominated naming conventions. By the 1970's, Chicago had coined the term "feminist art" and had founded the first feminist art program in the United States. Chicago's work incorporates skills stereotypically placed upon women artistically, such as needlework, counteracted with stereotypical male skills such as welding and pyrotechnics. Chicago's masterpiece work is The Dinner Party, which resides in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

Early personal life

Judy Chicago was born Judith Sylvia Cohen in 1939, to Arthur and May Cohen, in Chicago, Illinois. Her father came from a twenty-three generation lineage of rabbis, including Vilna Gaon. Unlike his family predecessors, he would become a labor organizer and a Marxist. Arthur worked nights at a post office and during the day he would take care of Chicago, while May, who was a former dancer, worked as a medical secretary. Arthur's active participation in the American Communist Party, liberal views towards women and support of worker's rights, strongly influenced Chicago's way of thinking and belief system. During the 1950's McCarthyism era, he was investigated, which caused him to struggle to find work, and caused the family much turmoil. In 1945, while home alone with her infant brother, Ben, an FBI agent visited the home. The agent began to ask the six year old Chicago questions about her father and his friends, but the agent was interrupted upon the return of May to the house. Arthur's health would declined, and he would die in 1953 from peritonitis. May would not discuss his death with Chicago and Ben, and did not allow the children to attend the funeral. Chicago would not reflect on his death until she was an adult, and in the early 1960s she would be hospitalized for almost a month with a bleeding ulcer attributed to unresolved grief.

May loved the arts, and instilled her passion for them in her children, as evident in Chicago's future as an artist, and brother Ben's eventual career as a potter. At age of three, Chicago began to draw and was sent to the Art Institute of Chicago to attend classes. By the age of 5, Chicago knew that she "never wanted to do anything but make art." She applied, but was declined attendance at the Art Institute, and would attend UCLA on a scholarship.

Education and early career

While at UCLA she became politically active, designing posters for the UCLA chapter NAACP and eventually became its corresponding secretary. In June 1959, she met and fell in love with Jerry Gerowitz. Chicago would leave school and move in with Gerowitz. This would be the first time she had her own studio space. Eventually, the couple would hitch hike to New York in 1959, just as her mother and brother were moving to Los Angeles to be closer to her. The couple lived in Greenwich Village for a time, before returning back in 1960 to Los Angeles for Chicago to finish her degree. Chicago would marry Gerowitz in 1961. She would graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1962 and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Gerowitz would die in a car crash in 1963, devestating CHicago and causing her to suffer from an Identity crisis that she would suffer from until later that decade. Consecutively she would get her Master of Fine Arts from UCLA in 1964.

While in grad school, Chicago's created a series that was abstract, yet easily recognized as male and female sexual organs. These early works were called Bigamy, and represented the death of her husband. One depicted an abstract penis which was "stopped in flight" before it could unite with a vaginal form. Her professors, who were mainly men, were dismayed over these works. Despite the use of sexual organs in her work, Chicago refrained from using gender politics or identity as themes. In 1968, Chicago was asked why she did not participate in the "California Women in the Arts" exhibition at the Lytton Center, to which she answered "I won't show in any group defined at Woman, Jewish, or California. Someday when we all grow up there will be no labels." Chicago began working in ice sculpture, which represented "a metaphor for the preciousness of life," another reference towards her husbands death.

Study for Pasadena Lifesavers, prismacolor, 1968.

In 1969, the Pasadena Art Museum exhibited a series of Chicago's spherical acrylic plastic dome sculptures and drawings in an "experimental" gallery. Art in America noted that Chicago's work was on the forefront of the conceptual art movement, and the Los Angeles Times described the work as showing no signs of "theoretical New York type art." Chicago would describe her early artwork as minimalist and as her trying to be "one of the boys". Chicago would also experiment with performance art, using fireworks and pyrotechnics to create "atmospheres", which involved flashes of colored smoke being manipulated outdoors. Through this work she attempted to "feminize" and "soften" the landscape.

During this time, Chicago also began exploring her own sexuality in her work. She created the Pasadena Lifesavers, which was a series of abstract paintings that placed acrylic paint on plexiglass. The works blended colors to create an illusion that the shapes "turn, dissolve, open, close, vibrate, gesture, wiggle," representing her own discovery that "I was multi-orgasmic." Chicago credited Pasadena Lifesavers, as being the major turning point in her work in relation to women's sexuality and representation.

From Cohen to Gerowitz to Chicago: Name change

As Chicago made a name for herself as an artist, and came to know herself as a woman, she no longer felt connected to her last name, Cohen. This was due to the late grief of the death of her father and the lost connection to her name through marriage, Judith Gerowitz, as her husbands death. She decided she wanted to change her last name to something independent of being connected to a man by marriage or heritage. During this time, she would marry sculptor Lloyd Hamrol, in 1965. (They would divorce in 1979.) Gallery owner Rolf Nelson nicknamed her "Judy Chicago" because of her strong personality and thick Chicago accent. She decided this would be her new name, and sought to legally change it. Chicago was described as being "appalled" with the fact that she had to have her new husband's signature on the paperwork to legally change her name. To celebrate the name change, she posed for the exhibition invitation dressed like a boxer, wearing a sweatshirt with her new last name on it. She also posted a banner across the gallery at her 1970 solo show at California State University at Fullerton, that read: "Judy Gerowitz hereby divests herself of all names imposed upon her through male social dominance and chooses her own name, Judy Chicago." An advertisement with the same statement was also placed in Artforum's October 1970 issue.

Artistic career

The feminist art movement and the 1970s

In 1970, Chicago decided to teach full time at Fresno State College, hoping to teach women the skills needed to express the female perspective in their work. At Fresno, she planned a class that would consist only of women, and she would teach the fifteen students off campus to escape "the presence and hence, the expectations of men." It was at this time when Chicago would coin the term "feminist art" and the class would be the first feminist art program in the United States.

Chicago would go on to become a teacher at the California Institute for the Arts, and was a leader for the Feminist Art Program. In 1972, the program created Womanhouse, alongside Miriam Schapiro, which was the first art exhibition space to display a female point of view in art. Chicago would also co-found the Woman's Building in 1973, which housed the Feminist Studio Workshop which allowed women to explore their artistic abilities and the meaning of being a woman through art. During this period, Chicago began creating spray-painted canvas, primarily abstract, with geometric forms on them. These works would evolve, using the same medium, to become more centered around the meaning of the "feminine". Chicago would find heavy influence in the writing of Gerda Lerner. In Lerner's writings, Chicago became aware of Lerner's teachings that women who continued to be unaware and ignorant of women's history, would continue to struggle independently and collectively.

The Dinner Party

The Dinner Party as installed at the Brooklyn Museum.

Main article: The Dinner Party

Chicago decided to take Lerner's lesson to heart, and took action to teach women about their history. This action would become Chicago's masterpiece work, The Dinner Party, which would take her five years to complete. First, Chicago conceived the project in her Santa Monica studio: a large triangle, which would measure 48-feet by 43-feet by 36-feet, consisting of 39 place settings. Each place setting would commemorate a historical female figure, such as artists, goddesses, activists and martyrs. The project came into fruition with the assistance of over 400 people, mainly women, who volunteered to assist in needlework, creating sculptures and other aspects of the process. Today, the piece resides in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

The Birth Project and Powerplay

From 1980 until 1985, Chicago created The Birth Project. The piece used images of childbirth to celebrate woman's role as mother. The installation reinterpreted the Genesis creation narrative, which focused on the idea that a male god created a male human, Adam, without the involvement of a woman. Chicago described the piece as revealing a "primordial female self hidden among the recesses of my soul...the birthing woman is part of the dawn of creation." 150 needleworkers from the United States, Canada and New Zealand assisted in the project, working on 100 panels, by quilting, macrame, embroidery and other techniques. The size of the piece means it is rarely displayed in its entirety. The majority of the pieces from The Birth Project are held in the collection of the Albuquerque Museum.

After The Birth Project, Chicago returned to independent studio work. She created Powerplay, a series of drawings, weavings, paintings, cast paper and bronze reliefs. Through the series, Chicago replaced the male gaze with a feminist one, exploring the construct of masculinity and how power has affected men.

A new kind of collaboration and The Holocaust Project

In 1985, Chicago would marry photographer Donald Woodman, on New Year's Eve. Chicago's previous husbands were both Jewish, however, it wasn't until she met Woodman that she began to explore her Jewish heritage. This exploration would inspire her third major collaborative work, The Holocaust Project. Chicago met poet Harvey Mudd, who had written an epic poem about the Holocaust. Chicago was interested in illustrating the poem, but decided to create her own work instead, using her own art, visual and written. Chicago worked alongside her husband to complete the piece, which took eight years to finish. The piece, which documents victims of the Holocaust, was created during a time of personal loss in Chicago's life: the death of her brother Ben, from Lou Gehrig's disease, and the death of her mother from cancer.

To seek inspiration for the project, Chicago and Woodman watched the documentary Shoah, which comprises of interviews with Holocaust survivors at concentration camps and other relevant Holocaust sites. They also explored photo archives and written pieces about the Holocaust. Chicago also brought other issues into the work, such as environmentalism, Native American genocide, and the Vietnam War. With these subjects Chicago sought to contemporary issues to the moral dilemma behind the Holocaust. This aspect of the work caused controversy amongst the Jewish community, due to the comparison of the Holocaust to these other historical and contemporary concerns. The Holocaust Project consists of sixteen large scale works made of a variety of mediums including: tapestry, stained glass, metal work, wood work, photography, painting, and the sewing of Audrey Cowan. The exhibit ends with a piece that displays a Jewish couple at Sabbath. The piece comprises of 3000-square feet, providing a full exhibition experience for the viewer. The Holocaust Project was exhibited for the first time in October 1993 at the Spertus Museum in Chicago. The majority of the work from the piece resides at the Holocaust Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Current work and life

Chicago's archives are held at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and her collection of women's history and culture books are held in the collection of the University of New Mexico. In 1999, Chicago received the UCLA Alumni Professional Achievement Award, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Lehigh University, Smith College, Duke University and Russell Sage College. Chicago was named a National Women's History Project honoree for Women's History Month in 2008. Chicago donated her collection of feminist art educational materials to Penn State University in 2011. She lives in New Mexico. In the fall of 2011, Chicago returned to Los Angeles for the opening of the "Concurrents" exhibition at the Getty Museum. For the exhibition, she returned to the Pomona College football field, where in the late 1960's she had held a firework-based installation, and performed the piece again.

Style and work

Judy Chicago at work in her china-painting studio in 1974.

Chicago trained herself in "macho arts," taking classes in auto body work, boat building, and pyrotechnics. Through auto body work she learned spray painting techniques and the skill to fuse color and surface to any type of media, which would become a signature of her later work. The skills learned through boat building would be used in her sculpture work, and pyrotechnics would be used to create fireworks for performance pieces. These skills allowed Chicago to bring fiberglass and metal into her sculpture, and eventually she would become an apprentice under Mim Silinsky to learn the art of porcelain painting, which would be used to create works in The Dinner Party. Chicago would also add the skill of stained glass to her artistic tool belt, which would be used for The Holocaust Project. Photography became more present in Chicago's work upon the development of her relationship, and eventual marriage, to photographer Donald Woodman. Since 2003, Chicago has been working with glass.

Collaboration is a major aspect of Chicago's installation works. The Dinner Party, The Birth Project and The Holocaust Project were all completed as a collaborative process with Chicago and hundreds of volunteer participants. Volunteer artisans skills vary, often connected to "stereotypical" women's arts such as textile arts.

Through the Flower

In 1978, Chicago founded Through the Flower, a non-profit feminist art organization. The organization seeks to educate the public about the importance of art and how it can be used as a tool to emphasize women's achievements. Through the Flower also serves as the maintainer of Chicago's works, having handled the storage of The Dinner Party, before it found a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum. The organization also maintained The Dinner Party Curriculum, which serves as a "living curriculum" for education about feminist art ideas and pedagogy. The online aspect of the curriculum was donated to Penn State University in 2011.

Further reading

Works by Chicago

• Beyond the Flower: The Autobiography of a Feminist Artist. New York: Penguin (1997). ISBN 0140232974
• The Birth Project. New York: Doubleday (1985). ISBN 0385187106
• with Frances Borzello. Frida Kahlo: Face to Face. New York: Prestel USA (2010). ISBN 3791343602
• Kitty City: A Feline Book of Hours. New York: Harper Design (2005). ISBN 0060595817
• Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist. Lincoln: Authors Choice Press (2006). ISBN 0595380468

Works by others

• Levin, Gail. Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist. New York: Crown (2007). ISBN 1400054125
• Lippard, Lucy, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Edward Lucie-Smith and Viki D. Thompson Wylder. Judy Chicago. ISBN 082302587X
• Lucie-Smith, Edward. Judy Chicago, An American Vision. New York: Watson-Guptill (2000). ISBN 0823025853
• Right Out of History: Judy Chicago. DVD. Phoenix Learning Group (2008).

References

• Bloch, Avital (editor) and Lauri Umansky (editor). Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960s. New York: NYU Press (2005). ISBN 0814799108
• Felder, Deborah G. and Diana Rosen. Fifthy Jewish Women Who Changed the World. Yucca Valley: Citadel (2005). ISBN 0806526564
• Lewis, Richard L. and Susan Ingalls Lewis. The Power of Art. Florence: Wadsworth (2008). ISBN 0534641032
• Wylder, Thompson Viki D. and Lucy R. Lippard. Judy Chicago: Trials and Tributes. Tallahassee: Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts (1999). ISBN 1889282057

External links

• Official website
• Judy Chicago on Through the Flower
• Judy Chicago from LewAllen Galleries
• Chicago's revisited installation Disappearing Environments from the 2012 Art Los Angeles Contemporary art fair.