re email on What is it? The Dinner Party
jeanne khan
Wrote the poem below before the 2 May art critic lambasting the work of the
Artist.
For those unfamiliar with the individual place settings....
Picture an equilateral triangle 48' with 13 place settings on each side...each
place setting includes a white porcelain goblet lined with gold and a
porcelain fork and knife on either side of a painted china plate about 14" in
diameter resting on individual cloths....the first plate represents the Earth
Goddess and the butterfly motif is immersed within the plates surface; the
runner which hangs down on both sides of the table complements the symbol of
the plate...the Snake Goddess rests on a fur like runner and contains a tiny
icon typical of those found in Crete and deemed fertility symbols....the
images from some plates are three dimensional as if emerging from their
chrysalis setting...those for persons representative of their time like
Theodora, Empress are in purple mosaic tiles; Emily Dickinson, pink ruffles;
Margaret Sanger, red bold leaping off the plate; Virginia Wolfe, pages curling
off the plate; St. Bridget of Ireland's runner is trimmed in wood consistent
with her founding an order near a hollowed out oak tree; Mary Wolstonecraft'
runner is quilted with figures including a birthing mother, Sojourner Truth's
runner appears to be homespun, the guide for Lewis and Clark Sacawejea has a
runner with native american symbols.....
The room is dark, the lighting illuminates the floor tiles whose luster
enhances the spot lighting for each place setting...the audiotour by the
Artist explains the materials used in each place setting, the relevant names
on the floor tiles beneath each setting, the significance of the continuum
from Earth Goddess to Georgia O'Keefe settings..in 45 minutes as one moves
around the triangle, the concept becomes clear and the effect is
overwhelming....viewing several times does not diminish the effect.
Reading the journals for this Project ( and the Birth Project...100 quilts
done by folks all over the country per the Artist's designs...and the
Holocaust Project taking 8 years and including stained glass and other
media....) and the Artist first auto bio "Through the Flower" which is the
name of the administrative entity for her art and these projects plus the
second auto bio "Beyond the Flower" written nearly 20 years later and
published in 1996 begin the process of seeing what the Artist saw and how the
work came into existence....The Dinner Party involved several hundred men and
women for five years in Santa Monica....these artists are some of those
featured during this exhibit in LA now.
Her work arrives by public acclamation to enrich museums (she and her husband
are perennially poor) and always infuriates art critics who see the Code
breached by use of painted china plates, embroidered runners and the like as
not art or too bold for their taste....;D
Dreams announce the effect
of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party
wherein 39 place settings
above 999 floor names
hint at millions unseen,
unheard and unheralded
whose lives loom large
in their absence on and under
the table set before the King;
whose labors linger long
in their presence on and under
the table set before the King.
The King blind in his patriarchial pelt
of pets from patrons is also an art critic,
thus cannot see the rendering
wrenched from the wounding
of women who wept woefully
into the artist's ear that women's work
is art bounded by birth beds and brutality.
The artist's bond with the blind King
who boxed her works has rendered
her as speechless as the subjects
screaming to be seen, but she writes
and thereby speaks anyway.
Her words mock the King
and call the masses
to move forward with
crowbars and fingernails
to open the boxes,
to assemble the works
and to protect them
with their bodies.
The artist weeps
then directs the efforts
toward completion
beyond their mere flowering
toward being a mighty force
of feckful female fecundity.
Such dreams include a museum
aptly named Armand Hammer
in the city of angels
on 23 April 1996
where crowds assemble
to witness the wonder
of the artist's vision
embodied in painted china,
embroidered runners,
porcelain goblets and tableware
on the triangular table
above 2300 tiles telling
the tales of the women still
whispering into the artist's ear.
Such dreams include the witnesses
whispering into each others ears.
The whispers become a roar
that drives the blind King
to empty his eye sockets
and be heard from no more.
Jeanne Khan
24 April 1996