On Tuesday night, pioneering feminist artist Judy Chicago summed up the experience of attending the opening for her most comprehensive New York survey exhibition.
“I’m ecstatic,” said the 84-year-old New Mexico-based artist, standing underneath her series of large woven tapestries on view at the New Museum. Chicago was holding court on the museum’s fourth floor, dedicated to an installation of Chicago’s work made in collaboration with Dior for the brand’s 2020 couture show. The installation shares the room with work by other formative female artists like Hilma af Klint and Frida Kahlo, a show-within-a-show coined “The City of Ladies.”
“But it’s not what I think,” Chicago continued. “It’s what the people who see it think. Whether they think I’ve made a contribution to a new way of seeing the world. People have been unbelievably complimentary,” she added. “And said things like ‘such a dismal time here, your work is really needed now.’ That’s nice to hear.”
The stream of compliments for the artist continued at dinner, held several blocks north of the museum at the Bowery Hotel’s terrace.
“I’m on a quick Judy mission,” said Dianna Agron as she made her way over to the artist, who was seated at one of the long dinner tables festooned with candles and flowers arranged in a pink and purple ombre. Dinner was served on plates printed with Chicago’s work.
“To experience 60 years as an artist, and to see how she’s so centered in feminism and what it means to be a woman in her experience, is extraordinary. And it was so nice to meet her and speak with her over there. I was saying, I really would have loved to live at Womanhouse and have been a part of that collaboration with all those performers and artists,” Agron added, referencing the art installation and performance space that Chicago organized in the early ’70s. “She’s just vibrant. It’s wonderful to see people who love what they’re doing, and who can make it work. It’s something I aspire to.”
Other dinner guests included artist Jeffrey Gibson, who recently designed a bag for the Lady Dior Art bag project and will represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale next year; Mickalene Thomas, who has collaborated with Dior several times; Todd A. Kessler, who’s slated to direct “The New Look,” a miniseries about Christian Dior for Apple TV+; Frédéric Tcheng, who directed the documentary “Dior and I”; architect Peter Marino; New Museum director Lisa Phillips, and exhibition curator Massimiliano Gioni.
Before dinner, Gioni touted the synergy between the New Museum — the building was designed by a woman, and has had female leadership for several decades — and Chicago’s work. “It takes more than a village. It takes a city of ladies,” said Gioni, thanking the community of supporters, lenders, and curators that made “Herstory” a reality.
“At the gala for the New Museum [in April 2023] I talked about how I put my faith in art history. As it turned out, I may have been right. But still there is a lot to do before there is real institutional change,” Chicago told the crowd, also crediting her ongoing relationship with Dior.
“One of the things I love about our collaboration, which has gone on now for four years, every time I have dinner with Olivier [Bialobos; deputy managing director for Dior] somehow at the end of the dinner I have a new project.”
![The scene at the Dior x New Museum Dinner for Judy Chicago: Herstory Exhibition.](https://wwd.com/wp-content/themes/vip/pmc-wwd-2021/assets/public/lazyload-fallback.gif)