‘Judy Chicago: Revelations’ brings the feminist trailblazer’s unseen works to London

Judy Chicago, American artist and feminist icon, is celebrated for her trailblazing work that provides a vision of equality, basing her six-decade career on a rooted sense of self-belief. Now, ‘Revelations’, her first major interdisciplinary, immersive exhibition at Serpentine North, dives into a world of unseen works, including a manuscript penned by Chicago in the 1970s, providing insight into what fuelled her vision of equality and spearheaded the feminist art movement that defined her career.

Serpentine North presents ‘Judy Chicago: Revelations’

The retrospective is focused on drawings, but also includes preparatory studies alongside audio, visual and new-technology materials. Throughout her career, Chicago has battled against inequality within the male-dominated landscape, and often felt the need to change how she presented herself to be taken seriously, previously telling Wallpaper*, ‘My gender kept slipping into my work, I either had to try to construct an alternative face for myself and other women, or continue to not be taken seriously.’

However, she continued to create work from a woman's perspective, committed to craft and experimentation, displayed through her choice of subjects and materials – including her spectacular pyrotechnic display Forever de Young, which won her a Wallpaper* Design Award for Best Firework in 2022. Her relentless self-defiance shaped her work and self-identity. ‘I just didn’t fit. I was marginalised for many decades because nobody could fit me into the narrow categories of contemporary art. When I was young, I wanted to fit in, but now I’m old I'm like, “I don’t want to fit in.”’

‘Revelations’ charts the full journey of her career. The immersive nature of this exhibition includes an AR app, a video recording booth, and other audio-visual components, setting it apart from Chicago’s previous shows. Perhaps most notable is a guided tour from Chicago of The Dinner Party (1974-79) and video interviews with its participants; the installation opened political floodgates in the art world, and left an aftermath of divided praise and criticism.

The exhibition takes its name from a manuscript Chicago authored in the early 1970s, while working on The Dinner Party, which will be published for the first time by Serpentine and Thames & Hudson. An archival gem, it unravels the work of women society sought to neglect, overturn and erase.

This retrospective delves into the artist’s visual language and themes of birth and creation, her Jewish identity, and the social construct of patriarchy and masculinity, all of which express her dedication to contesting the ‘absence and erasure of women in the Western cultural canon’.

‘Judy Chicago: Revelations’ is on display at the Serpentine North from 23 May to 1 September 2024

judychicago.com

For more events see our guide to London art exhibitions to see this month