A Feminist Moment?

Miwa Yanagi, Yuka, from the My Grandmothers series (2000), collection of Linda Pace, San Antonio, Tex. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Did you ever wonder how March came to be designated "Women's History Month"? Its origins actually date back nearly 100 years. In 1911, two socialist activists—a German, Klara Zetkin, and a Russian, Aleksandra Kollontai—organized European women in strikes and marches on a day they called International Women's Day (I.W.D.). In 1915 I.W.D. called for the end of World War I, and on March 8, 1917, I.W.D. merged with demonstrations leading up to the Russian Revolution. Later commemorated in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s, I.W.D. slowly faded from history. Only in the 1960s did it undergo a revival, largely due to the women's movement. In 1975, no longer associated with socialism, International Women's Day obtained U.N. sponsorship. In 1978 it was expanded to Women's History Week, and by 1987, the U.S. Congress extended its observation to an entire month.

Today, 20 years later, if we judge from recent press and publicity, feminism is "in" and "hot." Whether or not this holds true overall, there is no question that feminists have a significant presence in today's arts scene.

One indication of this was the recent symposium, "The Feminist Future: Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts," held on the weekend of January 26-28 at the Museum of Modern Art. This is the same Museum of Modern Art that has been criticized, lambasted, and demonstrated against for being the bastion of dead white male artists. The influential New York Times art critic Holland Cotter published an article titled "Feminist Art Finally Takes Center Stage," dated January 29, reporting on the conference. In it, he said, "Feminism has generated the most influential art impulses of the late 20th and early 21st century." However, feminism—at least at this symposium—was not without problems. The audience at the museum was almost all white, and the panel featured only one black woman and one Indian woman, representing all of Asia. So this "feminist symposium" did not represent all women, by any means. And even though Judy Chicago receives tremendous press attention, hundreds of other women do not.

The symposium was a kind of curtain-raiser for several events to come. One, an exhibition starting March 4 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, is called "Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution." Closer to home, the Brooklyn Museum will open "Global Feminisms" on March 23. The same day, the museum officially opens its new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and a permanent gallery for Judy Chicago's notorious The Dinner Party.

On February 1, The New York Times ran an article by Robin Pogrebin titled "Ms. Chicago, Party of 39? Your Table's Ready in Brooklyn." The artist's huge and expensive installation has finally found a permanent home more than 30 years after it was begun. Titled The Dinner Party, it literally brings famous women of history to the table. Its 39 place settings celebrate a pioneering feminist in the center of each one. Hundreds of additional names are inscribed on surrounding floor tiles. The "guests of honor," whose names are embroidered onto the runners, range from Sappho, the Greek poet, to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, to Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Sacagawea, the Native-American woman who guided Lewis and Clark. The space the work occupies is enormous, and the embroidery and various materials employed are both extremely beautiful and prodigious.

Judy Chicago began The Dinner Party in 1974, recruiting more than 400 women and a few men to work on the intricate piece over the next five years. It has generated a great deal of controversy since its conception. In some ways, the work epitomizes the women's movement, with its emphasis on collaboration, consciousness-raising, and craft—all important components of the women's movement of the '70s. But criticisms of the work have come from both conservatives and feminists. Conservative critics Hilton Kramer and Robert Hughes questioned whether the work was "art." In those early years, it represented a breakthrough from traditional painting and sculpture—a form of installation art now pretty much universally accepted. Some objected to—and ridiculed—the artist's self-professed butterfly/vaginal imagery in the center of each plate. Others believe that Chicago exploited anonymous women who volunteered their work on the project, taking all the credit for herself. (In fairness, she has always at least included lists of those involved in creating the work at every showing.)

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (Virginia Woolf and Georgia O’Keeffe place settings) (1979). (Photo by Donald Woodman )

Whatever the truth and reactions to The Dinner Party, I was both impressed and moved by it—its beauty, its concept, and its originality. I first saw it upon its completion, and again when it came to the Brooklyn Museum in 2002. I definitely recommend a trip to Brooklyn to see it when it opens.

In addition, the Brooklyn Museum will exhibit "Global Feminisms" in one of its new galleries, as well as use one room to display a series of highlights of various women featured in the large work.

A less famous artist, Devorah Sperber, coincidentally has a show that opened at the Brooklyn Museum in January and continues through May 6. Sperber's installation, Eye of the Artist, includes five pieces assembled from multicolored spools of thread hung on a steel armature, and two recent works composed of colored crystals. Her work addresses the science of visual perception by a fascinating process of reproducing masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Jan van Eyck, and Picasso, upside down. At first they appear abstract, but viewed with an optical device, the work becomes immediately recognizable. The artist, rather than addressing feminist issues, directs our attention to universal ways of thinking versus brain processing of visual information.

Most young people today take for granted that women should have equal opportunities. When I attended graduate school in art history at Columbia in the early '70s, however, women dominated the field—that is, as students. Professors were nearly all male. I recall that one woman professor was called "Miss," although she had a doctorate, while the men were all addressed as "Doctor" or "Professor."

A similar situation was prevalent in music conservatories, where women outnumbered men as students, but few were hired by orchestras. The New York Philharmonic had no women in its ranks until 1966, when Juilliard alumna and current bass faculty member Orin O'Brien became the first. And the Vienna Philharmonic has only recently hired a woman. It doesn't take much to see that this was true across the board. Women scarcely appeared on the scientific, political, economic, or even literary scenes.

Brooklyn Museum of Art collection; Devorah Sperber, After Picasso (detail) (2006). (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Many students today have little or no knowledge of the consciousness-raising groups and pioneering women that forged a change. How many people, for example, can name 10 women artists of the 20th century? Even five? The answer is probably not many, judging from the response of students in my art history classes. This is in spite of the fact that the 20th century saw a colossal increase in the number of famous women artists. For this reason, works such as The Dinner Party and educational resources and shows like those planned at the Brooklyn Museum are invaluable.

The photographer Berenice Abbott, who died in 1991 at the age of 93, remembered being asked, when going into poor New York City neighborhoods, how a "nice girl like you could go into such a terrible place." She replied, "I am not a nice girl; I am a photographer."

Feminism will be here to stay—not just for a moment—when all professionals are first thought of in terms of their professions, and not marginalized in any way. It has to be inclusive—not limited to any race, nationality, or even gender. Men can and should be feminists too. Studying and respecting women in history is one way of insuring that this will happen.

Art historian Greta Berman has been on the liberal arts faculty since 1979.