ABSTRACT
Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, which opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in March 1979, is a synthesis of the decorative and fine arts; it is theater, literature, history; it is a complex set of ideas; it is monumental in conception and execution. The Dinner Party uses some of the most familiar objects and experiences of women's lives to illuminate that history through the domestic ritual of serving food, and the material components of that ritual—painted porcelain tableware and embroidered napery. The Dinner Party is installed within a large room which is entered through a hallway hung with large woven banners that give an idea of what to expect inside. In an unpublished manuscript entitled "The Revelations of the Goddess," Chicago creates a mythic context for The Dinner Part. Both the imagery and iconography of The Dinner Party present a thoughtfully worked out and consistent vision of women's history.
