The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is located on the fourth floor of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, United States. Since 2007 it has been the home of

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

's 1979 installation, ''

The Dinner Party ''The Dinner Party'' is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings on a triangul ...

''.

History

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opened on March 23, 2007, at the Brooklyn Museum as the first public space of its kind in the country; it is a nexus for feminist art, theory, and activism. The center, located on the museum's fourth floor, aims to create a compelling and interactive environment to raise awareness and educate future generations about

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

’s impact on culture. Since 2007 the Center has been the permanent home of

's landmark feminist work ''

''. The Center's Forum is a venue for public programs and a platform of advocacy for women’s issues, and its Feminist Art and Herstory galleries present critically acclaime
exhibitions
The Council for Feminist Art, a membership group, supports the ongoing educational programming and the continuing success of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The Center's namesake and founder, Elizabeth A. Sackler, is a

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

and

art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

Layout

''The Dinner Party''s gallery is the centerpiece of a dramatic design for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art that was conceived and developed by award-winning architect Susan T. Rodriguez, FAIA, a partner in

Ennead Architects Ennead Architects LLP (/ˈenēˌad/) is a New York City-based architectural firm. The firm was founded in 1963 by James Polshek, who left the firm in 2005 when it was known as Polshek Partnership. The firm's partners renamed their practice in mid- ...

. ''The Dinner Party'', which includes 39 placesettings as well as the names of 998 women on a '' Heritage Floor'', is enclosed in large, canting glass walls that provide a first glimpse of Chicago’s work. It is surrounded by a series of distinct, yet interconnected series of galleries that include two changing exhibition galleries and a study center that can be transformed from an academic forum into a multimedia gallery, as required, by a large pivoting wall.

Past exhibitions

The Center's opening exhibition, "Global Feminisms" was the first international exhibit exclusively dedicated to

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

from 1990 to the present. It was curated by

Maura Reilly Maura Reilly is Director of the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. She has dedicated her career as an author and curator to underrepresented artists, especially women. Biography Reilly has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the New York Univers ...

and

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art h ...

. *
Art of Our Own: Women Ceramicists from the Permanent Collection
, March 23, 2007 – July 26, 2008 *
Artist Project: Between the Door and the Street
, October 10–October 20, 2013 *
Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection
, October 31, 2008 – April 5, 2009 *
Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago's Early Work
, 1963–74, April 4–September 28, 2014 *
Eva Hesse Spectres 1960
, September 16, 2011 – January 8, 2012 *
The Fertile Goddess
, December 19, 2008 – May 31, 2009 *
Ghada Amer: Love Has No End
, February 16–October 19, 2008 *
Global Feminisms
, March 23–July 1, 2007 *
Global Feminisms Remix
, August 3, 2007 – February 3, 2008 *
Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanitary Fair of 1864
, January 29–October 17, 2010 *
Judy Chicago’s Feminist Pedagogy and Alternative Spaces
, September 29–November 16, 2014 *
Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the 'War' and 'Death' Portfolios
, March 15–November 10, 2013 *
Kiki Smith: Sojourn
, February 12–September 12, 2010 *
Lorna Simpson: Gathered
, January 28–August 21, 2011 *
Materializing 'Six Years': Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art
September 14, 2012–February 17, 2013 *
Matthew Buckingham: 'The Spirit and the Letter'
, September 3, 2011–January 8, 2012 *
Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919
January 20–August 19, 2012 *
Patricia Cronin: Harriet Hosmer, Lost and Found
", June 5, 2009 – January 24, 2010 *
Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses
, February 3, 2007 – February 3, 2008 *
Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin
, January 27–August 12, 2012 *
Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video
, May 1, 2009 – January 10, 2010 *
Sam Taylor-Wood: 'Ghosts'
, October 30, 2010 – August 14, 2011 *
Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters to 'The Ladder'
', November 22, 2013 – March 16, 2014 *
Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958–1968
, October 15, 2010 – January 9, 2011 *
Votes for Women
, February 16–November 30, 2008 *
Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey
, October 11, 2013 – March 9, 2014 *
Wish Tree
, November 15, 2012 – January 6, 2013 *
'Workt by Hand': Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts
, March 15–September 15, 2013 * ''Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals'', October 21, 2016 – March 5, 2017 * ''Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty'', November 4, 2016 – May 7, 2017 * ''Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller'', November 4, 2016 – June 18, 2017 * ''Infinite Blue'', Opened November 25, 2016 * ''A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt'', Opened December 15, 2016 * ''Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern'', March 3–July 23, 2017 * ''We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85,'' April 21–September 17, 2017
''Roots of “The Dinner Party”: History in the Making''
October 20, 2017 - March 4, 2018 *

, Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985 April 13–July 22, 2018

Feminist Art Base

An original initiative from the Center for Feminist Art is its “Feminist Art Base, conceptualized by the Center's founding curator,

.” This database is a self-generated selection of past and present artists, whose work reflect feminist ideas, investments, and concerns, such as Karen Heagle,

Julia Kunin Julia Kunin is an American sculpture and video artist. She was born in Vermont, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is inspired by organic forms, undersea creatures, and interior spaces, with a focus on the female body. She graduate ...

and Clarity Haynes. The database is actively added to with artists from the around the world, who continue to build their profiles. Each profile includes short biographies, CVs, and exemplary works as well as a “Feminist Art Statement.” This personal and living database wishes to be a comprehensive resource for achieving the center's mission: “''to present feminism in an approachable and relevant manner, to educate new generations about the meaning of feminist art, and to raise awareness of feminism's cultural contributions.''”

First Awards

In March 2012 The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art celebrated its fifth anniversary by honoring fifteen contemporary women with the Sackler Center First Awards. The awards, conceived by Elizabeth Sackler, are given each year to women who have broken a gender barrier to make a remarkable achievement and contribution in her respective field. The honorees are: 2016: *

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

2015: *

Miss Piggy Miss Piggy is one of the Muppet characters known for her breakout role in Jim Henson's ''The Muppet Show''. Since her debut in 1976, Miss Piggy has been notable for her temperamental diva superstar personality, tendency to use French phrases in ...

2014: *

Anita Hill Anita Faye Hill (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university's Heller School for Social Policy and ...

2013: *

Julie Taymor Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Her stage adaptation of ''The Lion King'' debuted in 1997, and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for Best ...

2012: *Associate Justice

Sandra Day O’Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was both the first woman nominated and the ...

(retired) *

Marin Alsop Marin Alsop ( �mɛər.ɪn ˈæːl.sɑːp born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate ...

Connie Chung Constance Yu-Hwa Chung (born August 20, 1946) is an American journalist. She has been an anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow ...

Johnnetta B. Cole Johnnetta Betsch Cole (born October 19, 1936) is an Americans, American anthropologist, educator, museum director, and college president. Cole was the first female African-American president of Spelman College, a historically black college, servin ...

Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Wilhelmina Cole Holladay ( née Cole; October 10, 1922 – March 6, 2021) was an American art collector and patron. She was the co-founder of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2006. Early ...

Sandy Lerner Sandy Lerner, (born 1955) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She co-founded Cisco Systems, and used the money from its sale to pursue interests in animal welfare and women's writing. One of her main projects, Chawton House, is in ...

Lucy R. Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. ...

*Chief

Wilma Mankiller Wilma Pearl Mankiller ( chr, ᎠᏥᎳᏍᎩ ᎠᏍᎦᏯᏗᎯ, Atsilasgi Asgayadihi; November 18, 1945April 6, 2010) was a Native American ( Cherokee Nation) activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve ...

(posthumous) *

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

Jessye Norman Jessye Mae Norman (September 15, 1945 – September 30, 2019) was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but refused to be limited to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert ...

Judith Rodin Judith Rodin (born Judith Seitz, September 9, 1944) is a philanthropist with a long history in U.S. higher education. She was the president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 2005 until 2017. From 1994 to 2004, Rodin served as the 7th permanent pr ...

Muriel Siebert Muriel Faye Siebert (September 12, 1928 – August 24, 2013) was an American businesswoman who was the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and the first woman to head one of the NYSE's member firms. She joined the 1,365 mal ...

Susan Stroman Susan P. Stroman (born October 17, 1954) is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include '' The Producers'', '' Crazy for You'', ''Contact'', and '' The Scottsboro Boys''. She i ...

Faye Wattleton Faye Wattleton (born Alyce Faye Wattleton; 8 July 1943) is an American reproductive rights activist who was the first African American and the youngest president ever elected of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the first woman sinc ...

References

External links

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art website
{{authority control 2007 establishments in New York City Art museums established in 2007 Art museums and galleries in New York (state) Brooklyn Museum Women's museums in the United States Feminist art organizations in the United States Feminism in New York City Sackler family