As if anyone needs another reason to head to New York to see art, the Brooklyn Museum just opened what its director calls a "museum within a museum" for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. As the first of its kind in America, the space is to be devoted to art that deals with gender inequality.
However, as the two exhibitions on display there now demonstrate, the always debatable definition of "feminism" seems to be lost in ambition. On the negative side, this fact turns many viewers off. On the bright side, this exhibition sparks greater and more empowered dialogue in an era that still needs to define the term. Interestingly, the curator of the center is Maura Reilly, who taught at Tufts before working for the Brooklyn Museum.
The iconic early feminist piece by Judy Chicago, "Dinner Party" (1979), has been given a permanent home in the space. This large-scale work is meant to portray a Last Supper for famous women throughout history. The triangular dinner table is set with ceramic plates shaped into a diverse array of vaginal forms for thirty-nine famous women whose names are intricately woven into their tablecloth settings. Hundreds of additional women are represented on tiles of the floor of the space.
The Brooklyn Museum was the first place to display the work in 1980, when the piece was still new. Now, it is established with a room designed for it surrounded by a triangular glass structure that slants inward in a darkened room so as to preserve it. An adjoining gallery was created to allow the work to adhere to its didactic function by featuring biographical information about the women represented at dinner.
While the message can be seen as outdated to many contemporary viewers, the work can be appreciated for its historical value, its momentous presence and its intricate details.
These days, the work is featured in every introduction to art history textbook. It was meant to disrupt the canon and that it did. In its new environment, it takes up over half of the space of the center dedicated to feminist art.
The adjoining exhibit, "Global Feminisms," attempts to address more contemporary feminist concerns. While the exhibition only allows works produced after 1990 by artists born after 1960, it features 88 artists from 49 countries from Zambia to Japan. Only seven of the artists are American.
"Global Feminisms" is divided into four sections by white cloth labels that describe each one. "Life cycle" begins the show by focusing on the biological burdens placed on women. An Italian artist, Sissi, sits above the exhibit in a chained cocoon glaring at any viewer that catches her eye. Her work "Wings Have No Home" (2006-7) can easily be looked at and walked under without realizing the woman inside is real. In fact, very few of the naked women, ubiquitous throughout the exhibit, shock the viewer.
The following sections, "Identity" and "Politics," contain a large number of video works. As one of the curators, Linda Nochlin, explained, video art is very popular with feminist artists because it is a relatively new and unadulterated medium. Rather than having to overcome their established male counterparts, women are free to start fresh. One artist emphasized this point with a small white almost unnoticeable crushed canvas in a corner of one of the winding rooms of the exhibition.
The fact that the curators decided not to include male artists shows that they do not feel ready to explore equality in the space. The focus is still on women.
However, as Linda Nochlin says, male artists will be represented in the space in the future.
The last section, entitled "Emotions," is meant to be a relief from the concerns previously addressed. Boryana Rossa of Bulgaria slows down and freezes images of two women in "Celebrating the Next Twinkling" (1999).
All visitors have the opportunity of walking into a room completely covered with hygienic napkins that was created for the exhibition in Patricia Monge's "Room of Isolation." The curators stress the fact that they meant this section to be wacky and fun.
If you are not going to be able to make it to New York any time soon, don't worry - you will not be missing out on the entire experience. The "Global Feminisms" exhibit will be at Wellesley College in September.
The mere presence of the space and the works gives hope for the continuation of dialogue and the security of female art and females in our time.
