Food, Feminism, and Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party

In this Art at Noon Dr. Emily Elizabeth Goodman will examine the Test Plate from Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party in the context of Second Wave Feminist art activism. In particular, Goodman will consider how Chicago’s large-scale collaborative project incorporated several of the organizing practices of the “Women’s Liberation Movement” of the 1960s and 1970s.

She will then explore how issues of labor—particularly women’s work surrounding food practices in the form of serving, cooking, and feeding—are manifest in The Dinner Party and Second Wave Feminist art more broadly, ultimately illustrating how these works were used to advocate for a revaluation of gender roles in American society.