朱迪·芝加哥认领

During the early 1980s, Judy Chicago worked on the "Birth Project," a series of images she designed for execution by a network of skilled needleworkers spread across the U.S. These needleworkers were volunteers who had either stayed in contact with Judy Chicago following their work on images to give expression to an important aspect of female experience too rarely depicted in fine art while linking these individual birth experiences to ancient, archetypal, female-centered myths of creation. The designs for several images in the series, most notably executed in a variety of needlework mediums over a several year period. The work depicted here is "Earth Birth "(1983), a sprayed acrylic on fabric painting by Judy Chicago with quilting by Jacquelyn Moore. "Earth Birth" is also available as a 1985 serigraph by the artist and as one of five serigraphs in a suite called Eve Images from the "Birth Project."

Power Headache is from the Powerplay series of drawings, paintings, sculptures, weavings, cast paper reliefs, and work in bronze that Judy Chicago created as an examination of the gender construct of masculinity from a female point of view. Describing her motivation for the series in her 1996 autobiography, she wrote: “Over the years I had listened to women share their fears, rage, and frustration about how men acted both in private and in the world. Yet I knew that I didn’t want to keep perpetuating the use of the female body as the repository of so many emotions; it seemed as if everything—love, dread, longing, loathing, desire, and terror—was projected onto the female by both male and female artists, albeit with often differing perspectives. I wondered what feelings the male body might be made to express. Also, I wanted to understand why men acted so violently.” Along with several other images from the series, Power Headache was later translated into tapestry by Chicago’s long-time collaborator, Audrey Cowan. The work pictured here is the original oil on canvas painting.

"Rainbow Shabbat" (1992) is the concluding image in "the Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light," a traveling exhibition that Chicago created in collaboration with her husband, the photographer Donald Woodman. Their eight-year collaboration on this project began in 1985 as a journey through Europe and the Middle East to explore the meaning of the Holocaust in a contemporary context. It was a journey of self-discovery through which Chicago came to understand the strength of her Jewish identity and its influence on her ideas about the artist’s role and the need to create art that aims to transform the world. It was also a journey into darkness that was, needless to say, immensely disturbing on many levels. The result was an exhibition that combined painting and photography, with additional work in tapestry and glass by selected artisans. To conclude the exhibition, Chicago wanted an image of hope, a vision for a future in which people are joined together across differences in age, gender, race, faith and culture to live in harmony with one another and the natural world. She chose to represent this vision in a large stained glass installation, "Rainbow Shabbat: A Vision for the Future," because in her words, "Light is Life." The idea for the Rainbow Shabbat as an image and message of hope came to Chicago during a memorable Shabbat dinner at the home of friends during a visit she and Woodman made to Israel. As she later wrote: "There were twelve people there: men and women from four different countries, of different ages, and mostly strangers. We all went around the table and told stories, and everyone listened for hours. For me the evening brought up not just feelings about my childhood but also the incredibly warm moments Donald and I had shared with Jews around the world. Being welcomed into Jewish homes during our travels gave us a profound sense of a global community and provided me with an idea for the last image of the project, an image of optimism and hope." Chicago chose to depict the Shabbat service with the heads of everyone turned toward the woman—as they would be during her blessing over the candles—while her husband raises his Kiddush cup and sings his wife’s praises. As Chicago intended, this compresses the actual sequence of Shabbat events but stays true to its spirit. It also celebrates both the Jewish and the female experience, suggesting that both offer the potential for human transformation. In addition to the central window, there are two side panels incorporating a prayer in English and Yiddish, based on a poem by a survivor from Theresienstadt: Heal those broken souls who have no peace and lead us all from darkness into light.