My plan: I will be basing my research paper on Judy Chicago, who is an American feminist artist, art

educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation
images, which examine the role of women in history and culture. Moreover, she was known for the
vaginal imagery she used to show in her paintings and sculpting, especially during the 1970’s, showing
how she was way ahead of her time. What I will be planning to do is discussing about the artist and her
work, particularly “The Dinner Party”, in depth, through utilizing all the elements and principles we have
studied so far. I will be giving a brief introduction of installations, its history, and why I chose
installations as a topic, in the beginning, and will begin with talking about Chicago and her work.

NOTE: The following information I have written is not final. This is just a brief draft containing
information that I found was necessary to include.

Installations

 What makes installation art different from sculpture or other traditional art forms is that it is a
complete unified experience, rather than a display of separate, individual artworks.  
 Installation art emerged out of environments which artists such as Allan Kaprow, made from
about 1957 onward, though there were important precursors, such as Kurt
Schwitters’s Merzbau 1933, an environment of several rooms created in the artist’s own
house in Hanover.
 From the 1960s the creation of installations has become a major strand in modern art. This
was increasingly the case from the early 1990s when the ‘crash’ of the art market in the late
1980s led to a reawakening of interest in conceptual art (art 
  Tweaking the subjective perception of the viewer is the artist's desired outcome. Pieces
belonging to this movement resonate with our own human experiences - like us they exist
within, and are always in conversation with, their lived environments
 Judy Chicago
  She was one of the pioneers of Feminist art in the 1970s, a movement that endeavored to
reflect women's lives, call attention to women's roles as artists, and alter the conditions under
which contemporary art was produced and received. 
 Seeking to redress women's traditional underrepresentation in the visual arts, Chicago focused
on female subject matter, most famously in her work The Dinner Party (1979), which celebrates
the achievements of women throughout history
 frank use of vaginal imagery
 threads and embroidery
 Ceramic, porcelain, textile, glass- MIX MEDIA
 The Dinner Party is a monumental installation celebrating forgotten achievements in female
history. Chicago described it as, "as a reinterpretation of The Last Supper from the point of view
of women, who, throughout history, have prepared the meals and set the table." The central
form is a forty-eight-foot triangular table with symbolic places set for thirty-nine "guests of
honor"—remarkable women from different stages in Western civilization. Each guest has her
own runner, embroidered on one side with her name and on the other with imagery illustrating
her achievement. Each place setting includes a glass plate, decorated with a butterfly or floral
motif symbolizing the vulva. By incorporating elements of a contemporary social event with the
 status and appearance of a banquet, Chicago elevates her guests to the role of heroes, a
traditionally male epithet. In essence, Chicago states, the work "takes us on a tour of Western
civilization, a tour that bypasses what we have been taught to think of as the main road." The
floor is inscribed with the names of 999 additional women worthy of recognition, while
acknowledgment panels on the walls honor the 129 collaborators who worked with Chicago on
the piece. Regarded as an icon of 20 th-century art, The Dinner Party is arguably the most
significant and recognized piece of feminist art ever made, notable in its incorporation of
collaborative working process, political symbolism, the sheer scale of the media response, and
the unprecedented worldwide grassroots movement it prompted in reaction to the work's
condemnation. The piece's lasting importance lies in its defiance of fine-art tradition by
representing a feminine history suppressed by patriarchal society, as well as its celebration of
the traditional "feminine" crafts: textile arts (weaving, embroidery, and sewing) and ceramic
decoration. Featured in sixteen exhibitions in six different countries, The Dinner Party has been
seen by millions of viewers.
 Some critics, however, hold negative opinions of the work, with American art critic Hilton
Kramer calling the work "vulgar" and "crass", and artist Cornelia Parker stating "we're all
reduced to vaginas, which is a bit depressing. It's almost like the biggest piece of victim art
you've ever seen. And it takes up so much space! I quite like the idea of trying to fit it in some
tiny bin – not a very feminist gesture but I don't think the piece is either." The work has also
been criticized for having a racial bias. Writer Esther Allen notes that the
work excludes Latin American women like Frida Kahlo, and author Alice Walker notes that
Sojourner Truth's plate is the only one that has three faces instead of a vagina, possibly, she
proposes, because "white women feminists, no less than white women generally, cannot
imagine that black women have vaginas".
 the piece was famously dismantled and stored away, rejected by institutions throughout the
country. Three decades of protest and controversy surrounding the piece followed until it was
finally reinstalled in 2007 in a permanent exhibition space at the Elizabeth Sackler Center for
Feminist Art in Brooklyn, New York.

NOTE: Following are the pictures that I have finalized to include in my Research Paper

installation view, Entryway Banners from The Dinner Party, 1979, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art,
Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo © Donald
Woodman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Collection of the Brooklyn
Museum. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo © Donald Woodman/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York
 Judy Chicago, Installation view of Wing One, featuring Primordial Goddess and Fertile Goddess place settings from
The Dinner Party, 1979, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. © Judy
Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo © Donald Woodman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Judy Chicago, Primordial Goddess plate from The Dinner Party, 1979, china paint on porcelain, 14 in. diameter,
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York Photo © Donald Woodman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
 Judy Chicago painting in her china painting studio, Santa Monica, California. Photo courtesy Through the Flower
Archive

Judy Chicago laying out names on the Heritage Floor, Santa Monica, California. Photo courtesy Through the Flower
Archive
Judy Chicago working on the Entryway Banners for The Dinner Party. Photo courtesy Through the Flower Archive
The Dinner Party Needlework Loft, Santa Monica, California. Photo courtesy Through the Flower Archive

Ceramic studio, Santa Monica, California. Photo courtesy Through the Flower Archive