Detail: Emily Dickinson place setting
This is a seminal work for the Women's Movement. Even though the ideas that this work embodies are problematic today, I think the piece is really meaningful and beautiful. Visiting the work at the Brooklyn Museum was like going on a pilgrimage and the experience was really spiritual for me. Chicago's goal was to make a work that included women where they were originally excluded. Men had the last supper, but women have dinner parties. The work is essentializing as it boils women down to the one thing that we all have in common, the vagina. She believed that the imagery containing a central core was something that existed with female art for centuries as well as something that modern women could relate to. The Dinner Party represents 39 significant women from history that contributed to the improvement of women's status within each time period. As we move through time, the plates get more and more three dimensional. My favorite place setting is Emily Dickinson's. I love the frilly lace that she uses on the plate.
I really could go on forever, but for this post I really wanted to just outline the merits of the piece, and not its faults.
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