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The Dinner Party: Artist Judy Chicago’s Iconic Antidote to the Erasure of Women in the History of Creative Culture

BY MARIA POPOVA in the Marginalian

That redemptive and rebellious aspect of needlework is a centerpiece of The Dinner Party (public library) — the iconic 1979 project by artist Judy Chicago (b. July 20, 1939), celebrating women’s heritage in creative culture.

At once a sacrament and an insurrection, the project was born out of and into the women’s empowerment movement of the 1970s. But any hubristic impulse we may have had, until recently, to dismiss its central point as no longer relevant or needed has been swiftly disarmed by the political situation of our day — a situation that is foisting upon us the unwanted, discomfiting awareness that misogyny and other forms of bigotry are alive and well, that we live in a society not nearly as woke as we may have thought, and that somehow we must break bread with people who have a very different view of the present and of the tapestry of former presents we call history.

Chicago’s words from decades ago stun with their relevance today:

Women had always made a significant contribution to the development of human civilization, but these were consistently ignored, denied, or trivialized.    FOR MORE

Featured Picture – Judy Chicago – The Dinner Party, “Sacajawea”

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