Museum Series: The Brooklyn Museum

I recently took a trip to The Brooklyn Museum.  While the museum offers plenty of exhibits and hosts pieces from many different periods, the most interesting part of the experience (and the reason a friend invited me to go in the first place) was an exhibit called The Dinner Party.

The museum describes Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party as “the most significant icon of 1970s feminist art.  Begun in 1974 and finished in 1979, with the help of hundreds of collaborators, the large-scale work celebrates the achievements of 1,038 actual and mythical female figures, most of whom had been neglected by history until they were reclaimed by feminist scholars.  In honoring those individuals, the work at the same time pays tribute to all women who have been lost to history.” 

The first part of The Dinner Party included panels of women who influenced various cultural spheres throughout history.  At the top of each section marked a woman who represented a specific cultural space (whether it was writing, painting, activism, etc.) and following that name was approximately a dozen other women who left a similar impact throughout history.  

The second part of the exhibit was set up as an actual dinner party complete with a huge triangular-shaped table hosting thirty-nine place settings.  With each woman’s name stitched on an embroidered runner, every utensil, napkin and plate honored a specific woman’s culture and place in history.  Not lacking in detail, the names of the 999 other women were inscribed on the floor below.

Not only is this exhibit visually stunning, it was the first “monumental work of American art, conceptualized by a woman, to survey the contributions of women to Western civilization over the millennia.”  The fact that I recognized only a portion of the names made the exhibit especially impactful for me, and I was reminded of the importance of honoring the generations of women who have helped change the world for the better.

You can find more information on The Brooklyn Museum here.

The museum offers Pay What You Wish during all open hours (and is free from 5 to 11 p.m. on the first Saturday of every month, except September).