Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party
The Dinner Party is a work of art, triangular in configuration, that employs numerous media, including ceramics, china-painting, and needlework to honor women's achievements. When her art is displayed, an immense open table covered with fine white cloths is set with thirty-nine place settings, thirteen on a side, each commemorating a goddess, historic personage, or important woman. The Dinner Party powerfully suggests that these female heroes are equally worthy of commemoration, as compared to the male heroes we all know well. The Dinner Party visually describes the historic struggle of women to participate in all aspects of society; its aim is to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women's hard-earned achievements are repeatedly written out of the historic record, sometimes within years of their attainments. Ms. Chicago began the art project in the spring of 1974 and finished it in 1979. She chose 999 women from throughout history to be represented in her art book which came out in 1996 (also The Dinner Party) and includes biographical information about each woman, as well as, displaying the thirty-nine place settings in the back of the book. Unfortunately, the art exhibit and artist have had to face many attempts at censorship from members of the art community, Congress, and the Religious Right throughout its own history, due to what they called the exhibit's resemblance to "vaginas on plates." Most recently, though, the artwork was exhibited at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and thousands of people viewed its beauty with great interest and excitement.