Remember ‘The Dinner Party, Artist Judy Chicago’s 1979 feminist art piece about the great women in history?
It’s a big piece: a dinner party table set with plates about women in history. Butterflies and vulvas abound. You can’t look at it without thinking Vagina, Vagina, Vagina. (That’s a dig at that Westchester high school, which prohibited three students from reading the word vagina outloud during a reading of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues.)
Well, the Brooklyn Museum is giving it a a permanent home, which opens this Friday. It is the
centerpiece of the museum’s new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for
Feminist Art.
Sackler, a philanthropist and historian. wanted to creat a museum of feminist art built around the Dinner Party, which has
been in and out of storage for 30 years. Partnering with an existing museum seemed like the way to go.
She brought the idea to Arnold Lehman and as they say: the rest is history. This is a big deal for women artists, for Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Museum.
Way to go. I will be attending a press event tomorrow and plan to report back. Very excited.
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