I just saw The Dinner Party, the landmark 1970’s feminist art piece, at the Brooklyn Museum’s new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. It was a press viewing with a walk-through with artist,  Judy Chicago.

I am, suffice it to say, blown away.

The piece depicts place settings for 39 mythical and historical famous women throughout history. It was produced from 1974 to 1979 by a collaboration of many individual women and first exhibited in 1979.

"The Dinner Party was meant to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record," Chicago is quoted as saying. 

The table sits in a large, dark room with large canting glass walls and dramatic lighting. The table is triangular. Each place setting features a placemat / tablecloth with the woman’s name and artworks relating to the woman’s life, along with a napkin, utensils, glass / goblet, and a plate.

The plates all feature a butterfly- or flower-like sculpture, that looks like a vulva.

A collaborative effort of many female artists, The Dinner Party celebrates traditional female accomplishments such as weaving, china painting, embroidery, and sewing which have historically been thought of as craft or domestic work.

The white floor of triangular porcelain tiles is inscribed with the names of 999 other notable women.

1038 women in all. We are blessed in Brooklyn to have this incredibly inspiring, scholarly and artistic work on view. This means a lot to the children of Brooklyn, who will walk past these 39 places settings (and read the names on the tile floor) and begin to learn about the who these women are — diminished and/or erased no more.

I know I can wait to take OSFO.