Judy Chicago Celebrates 75th Birthday
Arts Editor, 03/28/2014
Christopher Graffeo

A prominent feminist artist of the 20th Century, Judy Chicago is turning seventy-five this year, and celebrating with a series of retrospectives, publications, and associated events scattered across the country. An Illinois native, she spent her early career in Los Angeles, completing a BA and MA at UCLA before creating the first program in feminist art at the California State University-Fresno (with Miriam Schapiro), and later the Feminist Art Program at CalArts.

One of this year's exhibitions will take place at the Brooklyn Museum, the permanent home of one of Chicago's most famous works, The Dinner Party. Titled Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago's Early Work 1963-74, it focuses on the artist's formative early periods, and will remain on display from April 4th through September 28th. The exhibit intends to cut a sharp cross-section through Chicago's less celebrated first works, aiming to offer a perspective on the overarching trajectory of her career.

A new volume of essays and photographs—The Dinner Party: Restoring Women to History—is scheduled for publication following the opening of the exhibit. Chicago, in an interview by telephone, underscored the importance of placing The Dinner Party within the long view of her achievements: "One of the things that's so wonderful about this year is that, even though I was very gratified by the attention The Dinner Party brought me, it almost blocked out the rest of my work. And finally I'm getting what I've longed for over many years, which is that people are seeing The Dinner Party as part of a much more intricate career."

Reflecting on the implications of a year-long celebration, Chicago drew attention to certain conflicts inherent in both the size and character of her work: "I'm basically having a national retrospective. There isn't a museum in the world that would give enough space to a woman artist to do an appropriately-scaled retrospective of a career like mine, so I've gone around that by involving museums across the country." Correspondingly, a host of parallel exhibits have been planned. Among others, The Very Best of Judy Chicago is currently at MANA in Jersey City, and will remain on display through August 1st. Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984-2014 will run at the New Mexico Museum of Art from June 6th through October 12th. Judy Chicago: Circa 75 is on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC through April 13th. And Judy Chicago: Through the Archives is on view at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University through September 30th.

In tandem with her national retrospective, she is also publishing a new critical work this year—Institutional Time, A Critique of Studio Art Education. Per Chicago, this text—which she spent ten years completing—considers the widening gap between the academic and commercial art worlds, both of which have been dramatically transformed: "I've started saying 'If you can't generate money, you can't be an artist.' It's a different world today, and I structured my teaching projects to try and help artists negotiate the differences between the world I grew up in—where you could scrape—and the world today—where you really have to make money as an artist."

Turning from a meditation on her past towards the future of both her own work and feminism at large, Chicago concluded: "An incredible amount of work remains to be done—and I'm already anxious to be back in the studio. The goal of feminism as I see it is the transformation of the planet—changing the structures where whites dominate over blacks, men dominate over women, rich dominate over poor. Our viewpoint isn't shared by everyone, but it underlies all of my work, and that's what sustained my success. The voiceless people of the world have found in my work a reflection of their values."

— Christopher Graffeo

Associated Artist

• Judy Chicago

Associated News

• May 14, 2015
  Press Release - Judy Chicago "Heads Up"


• December 1, 2014
  Judy Chicago Dialogue Portal Part 2 launched Dec. 1
  Penn State, 12/01/2014
  Catherine Grigor
  
  


• October 30, 2014
  History Was Impetus, But It's Future Work That Drives Judy Chicago
  


• October 26, 2014
  Invitations on the Journey: Wisdom from Elders
  Patheos, 10/27/2014
  Elizabeth Nordquist
  
  


• October 23, 2014
  "Judy Chicago" at Denver's RedLine honors great American troublemaker
  The Denver Post, 10/23/2014
  Ray Mark Rinaldi
  
  


• July 24, 2014
  Santa Fe Retreat: Judy Chicago
  Lofty Ambitions Blog, 07/23/2014
  


• July 7, 2014
  Heads Up! New Works by Judy Chicago
  Artsy.net, 07/07/2014
  
  


• May 22, 2014
  Judy Chicago: Early Work at the Brooklyn Museum
  NYArts Magazine, 05/22/2014
  Anni Irish
  
  


• April 23, 2014
  Judy Chicago at the Brooklyn Museum and Environs
  Paradigm Shift, 04/23/2014
  Heather Saunders
  


• April 23, 2014
  Judy Chicago Proves She's About More Than Vagina Plates at Brooklyn Museum Show
  The Village Voice, 04/23/2014
  Lilly Lampe
  
  


• April 10, 2014
  The Breakfast That Preceded ‘The Dinner Party’ ‘Chicago in L.A.’ Focuses on Judy Chicago’s Early Work
  The New York Times, 04/10/2014
  Ken Johnson
  
  


• March 28, 2014
  Judy Chicago Celebrates 75th Birthday


• March 28, 2014
  Judy Chicago
  ArtForum, 03/28/2014
  Paige Bradley
  
  


• March 6, 2014
  Chicago on Chicago
  Harvard Gazette, 03/05/2014
  Valerie Vande Panne
  
  


• January 18, 2014
  Can Judy Chicago make D.C. her sister city?
  The Washington Post, 01/18/2014
  Philip Kennicott
  
  


• March 1, 2013
  WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH ARTISTS: CELEBRATING WHM WITH JUDY CHICAGO AS THE KING OF HEARTS
  Huffington Post, 03/01/2013
  
  


• February 16, 2013
  JUDY CHICAGO
  Woven and Stitched
  February 15 – March 23, 2013
  
  Gallery Lectures and Discussions on Tapestries and Textiles:
  Saturday, February 23, 2:00—4:00pm


• August 30, 2012
  PUSSYRIOT: WOMEN STILL A POTENT FORCE, SAYS FEMINIST ART FOUNDER JUDY CHICAGO
  International Business Times, 08/30/2012
  Gianluca Mezzofiore
  
  


• August 20, 2012
  
  A SERIES OF JUDY CHICAGO EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS IN THE UK FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1985
  ArtDaily.org, 08/20/2012
  


• August 8, 2012
  Judy Chicago: Reviewing Powerplay
  ArtInfo.com, 08/08/2012
  
  


• August 1, 2012
  
  JUDY CHICAGO: REVIEWING POWERPLAY
  THE Magazine, August 2012
  Susan Wilder
  
  


• July 12, 2012
  Interrogating Heroic-Ness – and Judy Chicago’s Cultural Powers
  Adobe Airstream, 07/12/2012
  Ellen Berkovitch
  
  


• June 16, 2012
  Press Release - Judy Chicago "ReViewing PowerPlay"


• March 3, 2012
  THE CROCKER ART MUSEUM OPENS A SURVEY OF GROUNDBREAKING ARTIST JUDY CHICAGO
  Art Knowledge News, 03/03/2012
  
  


• February 23, 2012
  THE INAUGURAL PALM SPRINGS FINE ART FAIR FEATURES MORE THAN 2,000 POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY WORKS
  Art Knowledge News, 02/15/2012
  
  


• February 5, 2012
  Press Release - Judy Chicago "Material Girl"


• December 12, 2011
  JUDY CHICAGO TO RECEIVE THE PALM SPRINGS FINE ART FAIR'S LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
  Visual Art Source, 12/12/2011
  
  


• October 30, 2011
  Q&A: JUDY CHICAGO
  Los Angeles Times, 10/30/2011
  Jori Finkel
  
  


• October 26, 2011
  JUDY CHICAGO'S UPCOMING DISAPPEARING ENVIRONMENTS: HOW DO YOU MAKE ART OUT OF GIGANTIC PYRAMIDS OF DRY ICE? LA Weekly, 10/26/2011
  
  


• June 20, 2011
  Press Release - Artist Judy Chicago Is Now Represented by David Richard Contemporary