This show is not for everyone. (What show is for everyone?) I doubt everyone will be pleased. (Really?) I doubt parents will want to bring children, or, heaven forbid...grandparents! Or anyone close to death or thinking about it or, or ...
I have no doubts it will be controversial. (Yes.) It will build traffic. The people will come to see it and discuss.
Bravo for the National Museum of Women in the Arts! The home for the next four months of Judy Chicago's exhibition on death, The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction.
J
There are people who like to talk about death. A lot of them. I've worked with most of them, I think. They are blue and gray with personalities to match. I hope they find out about this show for they will love the subject of almost 40 paintings on porcelain and black glass and two bronze reliefs.
Ms. Chicago (b. 1939) is often associated with her celebrated Dinner Party, called by ArtNet News, "the most famous feminine artwork of all time." Once rejected by multiple museums, it now occupies a prominent place at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum where, it was announced last week at the Women's Museum, it's Brooklyn's biggest draw.
Wikipedia carries pages of description and discussion about the Dinner Party.
That's what art is, right? To stimulate, interpret, apply, enjoy? Well, maybe not so much "enjoy," but the bigger the controversy, the bigger the crowds. Make it and they will come.
Ms. Chicago's newest exhibition is not only about her upcoming demise, but, more importantly, that of the Earth and its occupants.
Three shadowy galleries of a makeshift funeral parlor contain the death works which mostly hang on walls, each under a single spotlight stream which augments the impression of being inside a cave (with no way out. Dream on, those of you who were expecting a brightly colored Wizard of Oz-like path to Heaven! It ain't here! This route to death is paved with doom).
In the first gallery, "Stages of Dying," Ms. Chicago takes a nude older woman (to contrast with the blithe, young female most male artists draw) through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
The second gallery contains the death mask, a bronze relief, of Ms. Chicago lying in the tomb. The third gallery has the second bronze and art of creatures threatened by humans who have acted in destructive ways to harm life.
The Extinction exhibition runs adjacent to Live Dangerously, pictures by 12 photographers of women, mainly their bodies, mixing with nature. Sometimes humorous, all stimulating and provocative, the pictures are a nice contrast to the somber environment presented next door.
On October 23, November 13, and December 4, the museum will host free noontime, 30-minute gallery talks about The End. Reservations are not required.
That the National Museum of Women in the Arts was chosen for Ms. Chicago's Extinction premiere is significant and helps focus attention on female artists whose works and presence have been ignored for centuries.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts will join Penn State and Harvard universities to become online repositories for the Judy Chicago Portal which opens Oct. 17, 2019.
A catalog, New Views with 240 pages, is available ($49.95).
What: The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction and Live Dangerously
When: Both shows close Sunday, January 20, 2020. The museum is open Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. and on Sundays, 12 - 5 p.m.
Where: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005
Admission: $10, adults; $8, students and seniors over the age of 64. Free for members and those age 18 and under, and free for everyone on the first Sunday of every month (October 6, Nov. 3, Dec. 1, and Jan. 5, 2020 for these shows).
For more information: 202-783-5000 or visit nmwa.org.
Metro stations: Metro Center (exit at 13th Street and walk two blocks north) or (better) walk a short distance from McPherson Square.
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