NEW YORK, NY.- In this provocative and resonant autobiography, celebrated artist and activist Judy Chicago reflects on her extraordinary life and career, sharing her vision for making art that matters.
Judy Chicago is America’s most dynamic living artist. Her works across a dizzying array of media range from performance and installation—including the monumental, multi media table laid for thirty-nine iconic women in The Dinner Party (permanently housed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at Brooklyn Museum)— to fiber arts in the groundbreaking Birth Project, painting and stained-glass work in the meticulously researched Holocaust Project, porcelain, glass, and bronze in the contemplative The End, and her latest genre-defying pyrotechnic Smoke SculpturesTM captured on an app.
Chicago is also an author, teacher, feminist, and activist, and, far from dividing the focus of her work, these identities are integral to her work as an artist, driving her efforts to achieve what has been a lifelong aim: a more just and equitable world for all beings.
Written on the eve of her first-ever career retrospective at the age of eighty-two, after decades on the margins of the art world, which devalued her work for its feminist content, The Flowering is an answer to and reflection upon her previous autobiographical writings, as well as a critically necessary update to her story of resilience. It will be a call to action for those who have supported her from the beginning and for a new generation.
“The Flowering,” Chicago writes in the book’s Introduction, “chronicles my journey as a white, cis, middle-class Jewish woman who learned about the potential power of art through the widespread positive response to her work despite art critical scorn; who had to build a community of support when there was none; who never swerved from her vision, no matter how difficult her life became; and who ultimately triumphed by not giving up. My struggle has sometimes been overwhelming and dispiriting but in the end it was worth it. I hope my readers will find my tale as inspiring as I did when I first discovered the long struggle of my foremothers, who paved the way for so many of the freedoms we enjoy today.”
The Author and Contributor
Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, and educator whose career spans nearly six decades. Her work is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum, The British Museum, the de Young Museum, The Getty Trust, The Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, SF MOMA, Tate Modern, and more than 25 university art museums.
Gloria Steinem (Foreword) is a writer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, But First it Will Piss You Off!, My Life on the Road, and other books.
