ART AND IDEAS

BACK TO CHICAGO

the show that presaged a movement

By Jaya Reddy 

Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago is an American feminist artist born in Chicago, IL, 1939. She is known for her gallery and museum installations as well as being involved in one of the first and most important feminist art exhibitions: “Womanhouse”. As a young woman in the 60’s, Chicago recounts being told that “she couldn’t be a woman and an artist, too.” But even as a little girl, she decided that she was not only going to be a feminist artist, but that she would also contribute to its history. Believing strongly in a feminist pedagogy to educate women artists, Chicago started the first Feminist Art Program at California State University, Fresno in 1970. She and her students embarked on a series of experiments that would come to be recognized as the foundation of feminist art and philosophy. And with that, they came up with "Womanhouse."

Chicago organized "Womanhouse" with her friend, colleague, and co-founder Mirian Shapiro. The exhibit featured the work of twenty-three women. At the time, women’s experiences were not considered important, especially in the domestic and artistic realms. Topics of maternity, motherhood, birth, menstruation, and sexual abuse were not part of the conversation in the contemporary art world, or really any world. "Womanhouse," presented at Cal Arts, changed that and it did so in the most expansive manner possible, covering painting, sculpture, textiles, and performance art.

Karen LeCocq, and Nancy Youdelman, two of the twenty-three artists a part of "Womanhouse" created a compelling piece of performance art called: “Leah’s Room.” In this extraordinary work, LeCocq sits in front of a mirror and applies, removes, and reapplies makeup in what feels like a never-ending act of self-evaluation. This is a depiction some of the meticulous and desperate processes women go through to achieve what the male gaze defines as “beauty.”

What's it like in Leah's Room?

The theme of repetition appears over and over again in "Womanhouse." For example, in Scrubbing, performed by Christine Rush, and Ironing, performed by Sandra Orgel, Rush and Orgel portray the never-ending drudgery of common housework. Another compelling piece in Womanhouse is Eggs to Breasts in the Nutrient Kitchen. Chicago’s students, Susan F, Vicky H, and RW created the Nutrient Kitchen, a horrific and feminine version of the assembly line. Each image highlights the dehumanizing aspect of nurturing a family, the world, men, children. The work includes the transformation of eggs on the ceiling to sagging breasts. The effect of these images reminds us that women are typically and traditionally the ones who must sacrifice their bodies for the supposed good of the world. As people viewed these explicit depictions of the female body, they were uncomfortable, aroused, and prodded in ways that they probably didn’t want to feel in 1972, or, would for that matter, even in 2022.

In 2017, feminist scholar, Sara Ahmed picks up on this idea, that the presence of feminist performance art challenges the belief that women do not belong, that art is for men, and in a strange sense, that feminist art (the event of it) should not even be happening, even though it is, which is the point of “Womanhouse.” In Living a Feminist Life, Ahmed concludes that feminist art arouses discomfort simply because it is present. That is to say: acknowledgment is a form of acceptance. Although “Womanhouse” was designed to alter the understanding of “women” and women’s experiences, women artists still face incredible prejudice in the cultural marketplace. Artists and activists like Chicago and Ahmed believe that it’s important to continue sharing women’s experiences, regardless of the sense of disbelief that it brings.

This started some thinking

Ahmed describes becoming a feminist as having to break yourself into pieces and pulling them back together through an endless, vicious cycle: “Feminism is DIY: a form of self-assembly.” Self-assembly, because you have to dissect and pull inspiration from your most vulnerable and broken experiences. It isn’t an easy process, but as Ahmed puts it, “when you begin to put the pieces together, it can feel magical.

“Womanhouse” delivered a similar sense of intimacy, magic, and belonging for the women attending and participating in it. It’s an outlet, or in Ahmed’s words, “like a tap has been loosened, allowing what has been held back to flow,” as if to allow those who have suppressed their stories to bring them forth in all their unwieldy and disconcerting power. This suggests that feminism is not just an understanding of the world, but an understanding of self, further pushing Chicago’s claim that women need a space in which they can express and realize their experiences.

©Jaya Reddy and the CCA Arts Review