February Issue 2000
Works by Judy Chicago at Winthrop University Galleries
The powerful exhibition
entitled, Judy Chicago: Trials and Tributes, will appear
at the Winthrop University Galleries in Rock Hill, SC, from Feb.
17 through Apr. 2.
Her exhibition is the most prestigious at the galleries since its opening in 1991 with Benny Andrews' American Series.
Chicago has achieved international recognition for works that have become familiar icons of contemporary art. The California artist has paved the way for revisionist views of art history and provided a model for both men and women artists in a changing social and creative climate.
Organized and curated by Dr. Viki D. Thompson Wylder at the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University, the exhibition, Judy Chicago: Trials and Tributes, is a retrospective comprised primarily of works on paper. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition with an introduction by art critic Lucy Lippard and an essay by Wylder.
"Judy Chicago thinks big. Her major projects are hugely ambitious," writes Lippard. "But like everyone else, she has to start somewhere, and the notes, sketches, drawings, and plans in this exhibition show that fertile brain at work, trying to translate its visions into the skillful hand, trying to make art that is beautiful, accessible and socially concerned."
The exhibition has since traveled from Florida State to the Indiana University Art Museum and Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Tampa, FL. It continues its national tour with stops at Winthrop, the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, OH, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and the New Mexico State University Art Gallery.
The exhibition consists of more than 80 prints, drawings, "combines" (paint and/or prismacolor and photography) as well as clay prototypes for plates from The Dinner Party. The exhibition is organized around the periods of the artist's significant projects including: The Early Years in California: 1964-1969; Early Feminist Work: 1970-1975; The Dinner Party: 1974-1979; The Birth Project: 1980-1985; The Powerplay Series: 1983-1986; and The Holocaust Project: 1984-1993.
Wylder maintains that Chicago never wavers from a feminine perspective. "Her work keeps a vital question hovering whether that question is directly addressed or not: What does it mean to be a female person who is an artist? That information is not readily available to most people even when they study art. In a culture that still heavily favors the male artist, Chicago's question is essential," she writes.
Chicago's work is fueled in part by the lack of a complete female historical record, Wylder says.
"Treated as something apart, women artists were either dismissed by society, as well as by art historians, or were sometimes looked upon as undismissable aberrations from the norm," Wylder contends. "The record, an erratic and spotty reporting of women's names across the centuries, provides a means for the false charge that there was no legitimate women artists in the past and certainly no 'great' women artists."
She asserts that Chicago's work strikes a nerve in everyone, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.
In 1985, her Birth Project showing in Washington, D.C. prompted reviewer Paul Richard to compare the imagery to "crotch shots" in Hustler magazine. Likewise, The Holocaust Project drew criticism from the Jewish community because of its comparisons with other historical genocides, such as Native Americans, and potential holocausts, such as nuclear proliferation. From Chicago's creation of the nation's first feminist art program at Fresno State College in CA in 1970, the artist has attracted attention.
"Although Chicago's work is an exploratory tribute to the female spirit, whatever shape that female spirit may take, this exhibition of her work is also a tribute to the work itself, for its ability to raise lasting issues and to change our cultural images, the symbols that help to mold us into who we are," Wylder concludes.
Trials and Tributes will occupy both the Elizabeth Dunlap Patrick Gallery and the Rutledge Gallery in the historic Rutledge Building on the Winthrop campus. Samples of Chicago's work can be found on the web at: (http://www.winthrop.edu/news/releases/chicago.htm).
For more samples of Chicago's work, an interview
with the artist and educational material, check out the Florida
State University site on the web at:
(http://www.fsus.fsu.edu/chicago99/index.html).
The University will offer several related programs
in conjunction with the exhibit, Judy Chicago: Trials and Tributes.
The programs are free and the publis is invited.
The schedule includes: Mar. 14, 7:30pm, Rutledge Auditorium -
A film: Right Out of History: The Making of Judy Chicago's
Dinner Party, which honors the achievements of women written
out of history books. Mar. 16, 7:30pm, Rutledge Auditorium - Susan
Brenner, professor of art, UNC-Charlotte, talks about her year
of working with Chicago on the ground-breaking Dinner Party
project. Mar. 20, 8pm, Rutledge Auditorium - A lecture by
Viki Thompson Wylder, Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call the gallery at call 803/323-2493 or e-mail Tom Stanley, Winthrop Galleries director, at: (stan1eyt@winthrop.edu).
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