June 2 – September 23, 2022
High res images are available here
Turning Inward, JUDY CHICAGO, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, traces Judy Chicago’s development as an artist and Jewish woman across six decades, from her early formal vocabulary of geometric color abstraction and groundbreaking work with pyrotechnics to the powerful explorations of self-identity, the politics of gender, and her personal formative experiences.
“I can’t think of a more fitting exhibition to fill the museum this summer as Portland comes back to life and visitors return to our galleries,” said OJMCHE Director Judy Margles. “Judy Chicago’s work at its core is about activism, curiosity, fearlessness, and longevity—all themes that resonant so profoundly in our history. As a Jewish museum, we are also grateful to be able to include her more difficult thematic exploration of genocide and the Holocaust. The generous support of Jordan Schnitzer through his Family Foundation Collection makes this exhibition possible and together we look forward to bringing Judy Chicago to Portland this fall for a public conversation.”
Curated by Bruce Guenther, OJMCHE Adjunct Curator for Special Exhibitions, and OJMCHE Director Judy Margles and drawn from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, this exhibition of 35 pieces primarily focuses on works on paper, including preliminary works leading to her monumental work, The Dinner Party, 1979; a stained-glass panel from Chicago’s Holocaust Project, 1985-1993; a cast glass piece, Grand Flaming Fist, 2007; as well as a group of large scale photographic prints of Chicago’s Atmospheres series.
Together, these works chart the boundary-pushing path of the artist named Cohen by birth and Gerowitz by marriage, who, in defiance of what she called the patriarchal structure of the Los Angeles art world, decided to throw down her gauntlet to history. In October 1970, Judy Chicago announced her chosen identity with a full-page ad in Artforum, divesting “herself of all names imposed upon her through male social dominance.” The same year, Chicago founded the first feminist arts education program in the United States at California State University, Fresno, a radical pedagogical approach that she has continued to develop over the ensuing years.
Throughout her often tumultuous, challenging, and frequently controversial career Chicago continued to push forward a feminist-based approach to art and art education, dedicating herself more fully to researching and surfacing the histories of women in Western civilization and combating the systemic erasure of women’s achievements from the historical record of contemporary art. Beyond the politics of gender, Chicago went on to explore and create a whole series of works around challenging themes such as the Holocaust, birth, and patriarchy’s hunger for power and dominance.
The Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light, 1985-1993, extended Chicago’s investigation of the dynamics and manifestations of power beyond societal structures. It marks her first collaboration with her husband, Donald Woodman. Their marriage prompted a consideration of her Jewish roots and heritage, which she had not focused on previously. The result of a charged eight-year investigation that began with the Holocaust but ultimately included genocides around the world, Chicago with Woodman created a haunting body of work.
“The power of Judy Chicago’s art is grounded in the integration of rigorous formal means with the emotional, intellectual dialectics of Feminism and identity,” said Bruce Guenther. “Chicago’s breakthrough Pasadena Lifesavers Series – represented in the exhibition by a masterwork, Pasadena Lifesavers Red Series #3 – established her use of color systems and abstract form to translate female identity and sexuality. She harnessed the clarity of geometry with power of color to develop a symbolic vocabulary of women’s collective identity and personal reference.”
In 2021, on the heels of the 40th anniversary of Chicago’s landmark installation The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago had her first retrospective exhibition at the FASM de Young Museum in San Francisco. Judy Chicago: A Retrospective not only achieved Chicago’s goal of having the body of her art emerge from the shadow of The Dinner Party, but it also brought the now 82-year-old artist’s wide-ranging oeuvre of work to a new audience. As noted in a review in the Guardian, “With little regard for the dictates of the art market, Chicago often worked at a very large scale, provoking audiences to have visceral responses to her pieces. Yet in spite of her facility with various media, she toiled in comparative obscurity for many years, her pieces languishing in storage or destroyed. The de Young’s exhibition is an overdue corrective.” To further mark the artistic moment, 2021 also saw the publication of her third summarizing autobiography The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago.
“Like all of you, I knew about Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, which is one of the most influential art works of our time. In fact, I saw the work, which celebrates the accomplishments of hundreds of women throughout history. Decades later, in fact two years ago, I met Judy and her husband, Donald, in Santa Fe. I soon began to collect many of her significant works, including those about the Holocaust and social justice,” said Jordan Schnitzer. “Judy, like all artists, are chroniclers of society’s issues. The art in this exhibit speaks to each of us about the horror of war and genocide, themes we must always confront.”
Turning Inward, JUDY CHICAGO, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation brings into focus an artist whose lifelong artistic exploration has at its foundation art as activism. For six decades, Judy Chicago has remained steadfast in her commitment to women’s rights to engage in the highest level of art production and to the power of art as a vehicle for intellectual transformation and societal change.
About the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation
At age 14, Jordan D. Schnitzer bought his first work of art from his mother’s contemporary art gallery in Portland, evolving into a lifelong avocation as collector. He began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in earnest in 1988. Today, the Schnitzer collection exceeds 20,000 works in all mediums and includes many of today’s most important contemporary artists. It has grown to include the country’s largest private print collection of post war and contemporary artists. He generously lends work from his collection to qualified institutions. The Foundation has organized over 110 exhibitions and has had art exhibited at over 150 museums. Mr. Schnitzer is also President of Schnitzer Properties, a privately owned real estate investment company based in Portland, Oregon, owning and managing office, multi-tenant industrial, multi-family and retail properties in six western states. For more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please visit jordanschnitzer.org.
About Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJMCHE) explores the legacy of the Jewish experience in Oregon, teaches the universal lessons of the Holocaust, and provides opportunities for intercultural conversation. Through exhibitions and public programming OJMCHE focuses on Jewish art, history, and culture, while simultaneously recognizing the challenge of remaining relevant in a changing and tumultuous world. OJMCHE challenges our visitors to resist indifference and discrimination and to envision a just and inclusive world.