The Dinner Party Was L I T!

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago is literally a dinner party for all of the brave and notorious woman heroes we all know and love today, with close to forty women seated at the dinner table, along with the names of 999 of other women on the floor beneath the dinner table. The Dinner Party celebrates the women that risked their lives and status to change the status quo for themselves and others. A few names that sat at the dinner table included, but are not limited to: Artemisia Gentileschi, Sacagawea, and Hildegard. A few names that I was able to see, and read, that were featured under the table in gold writing includes: Deborah, Miriam, and Mary. Usually, dinner parties were for the men and women typically had to cater to the needs of the men at the dinner party. Also, women could not typically express themselves or engage in conversation with the men, as they were deemed mentally inferior in comparison to men. So the fact that Chicago made a dinner party with only women, shows her critique to the idea that women were inferior to men. One could imagine the talks that these women would have regarding their challenges and successes, their overall being or how they were feeling, and what it meant to be a woman.

"The Dinner Party," by Judy Chicago, 1974-79 - The Brooklyn Museum

I noticed that Chicago used vaginal imagery throughout each dinner piece, and I thought that was pretty cool. While many may see this as playful, this just further celebrates the power of woman because it acknowledges that we have something that men cannot handle or have: the power to give life. The Dinner Party, in my opinion, satirizes the common belief of the 18th and 19th century where most believed that women were only good for giving birth. The vaginal imagery emphasizes the difference between each woman and their power, as each dinner piece has different styles/colors. But the vaginal imagery also symbolizes just how much each woman had in common just because they were women. I also noticed that as you walked down the table more, the more the plates levitated. The plates began to look more three-dimensional as time continued, and in my opinion, the designs reflected the women much more than early on in the exhibit. I believe that this is because the women of more recent times learned and were inspired from the other women that came before them, thus adding and replicating their own ideals and thoughts to ideas to make it their own.

One of my favorite pieces happened to be focused around Sojourner Truth, which appeared near the end of the exhibit. I really found Truth's seat and dinner pieces appealing, as it caught my eye with it's bright and dark hues of yellow. The detailing of the dinner pieces also caught my eye, as each dinner piece resembled various amounts of African patterns and designs. The plate also added a great deal of African culture because there appeared to be two African masks with a fist to the far-right of the plate. The mask to the left appears to be crying, while the mask to the right appears to be enraged or angry. This reminded me of the poem "We Wear The Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, which expressed how blacks and Afro-Americans had to pretend to be satisfied and content with their lower status in society. Despite the struggle and the pain that blacks had to endure, they were expected to deal with it no matter what and to do so gracefully. I am glad that Chicago paid homage to Truth, even though I would have liked for her to also include other black and Afro-American women seated at the table. However, I did enjoy seeing Truth included, and I also noticed that Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells were included under her seat at the table, which just added even more homage to black and Afro-American culture. Thank you, Judy Chicago.

Sojourner Truth's seat at Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"