South London Women Artists April 2014 | Page 60

invited by Laura Moreton-Griffiths Judy Chicago The creator of the The Dinner Party Judy Chicago has to be present at our table. I am interested in her because she is compelled to make confrontational work that challenges the notion that you can’t be a woman and an artist, which is surprising as she doesn’t like confrontation. Judy’s younger self realised that she had been behaving like a man in order to be taken seriously, so she responded by making work that explores what it really means to be a woman and to have a vagina, not a cock. She battled criticism and institutional censorship. Her work and lectures continue to resonate. South London Women Artists I’m Inside, Ring The Bell 61