In Conversation: Judy Chicago
“I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of humankind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.” —Judy Chicago
The Rose Art Museum is honored to host Judy Chicago, a pioneering and influential figure in contemporary art, for a special virtual conversation with Catherine Morris, Senior Curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Together, they will explore Chicago’s groundbreaking Birth Project (1980–1985), a series that reimagines childbirth as a powerful, sacred, and creative act. Produced in collaboration with more than 150 needleworkers across the United States, the project brought women’s collective labor and historically marginalized craft practices into the realm of monumental art. The discussion will focus in particular on Birth Trinity (1982–1984), a work from the series currently on view in Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art at the Rose Art Museum.
This conversation will also situate the Birth Project within the broader arc of Chicago’s career, including her landmark installation, The Dinner Party (1974–1979), permanently housed at the Brooklyn Museum. By placing childbirth, creation, and female agency at the center of visual culture, Chicago’s groundbreaking work established a foundation for feminist art as a recognized movement, challenging long-standing exclusions in art history and opening space for new narratives of power, labor, and representation.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Judy Chicago (b. 1939, Chicago, Illinois) is a pioneering feminist artist whose work has transformed contemporary art through its focus on women’s history, collaboration, and craft. She earned her B.A. and M.A. from UCLA and rose to prominence in the early 1970s with landmark projects including Womanhouse (1972), The Dinner Party (1974–1979), and the Birth Project (1980–1985). In addition to her artistic practice, Chicago was a groundbreaking educator, founding the first feminist art programs at California State University, Fresno, and the California Institute of the Arts, where she reshaped approaches to art education and mentorship. Her work is in the collections of the British Museum, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery, Washington DC, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Getty Trust and Getty Research Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, The Nevada Museum of Art, The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, and many others.
Catherine Morris is the Sackler Senior Curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum where, since 2009, she has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions including Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And (2021), We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985 (2017); Judith Scott-Bound and Unbound (2015); and Materializing Six Years: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art (2013). She has worked on projects examining contemporary practices through historical precedents, including the museum-wide Sackler Center tenth anniversary project, The Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum (2016–2018), and two collection-based exhibitions, Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection (2020–2021) and Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection (2018–2019).
This program is held in conjunction with the exhibition, Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art, August 20, 2025–May 31, 2026.