Brooklyn Museum Opens Feminist Art Site

Finally, feminist art has a gallery of its own. And then some.

An 8,300-square-foot space specifically dedicated to examining the impact of feminism in the art world, the first museum space of its kind, is taking up residence at the Brooklyn Museum. The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opens to the public Friday with a full schedule of talks and performances for the opening weekend.

"This is a huge, important global event," feminist icon Gloria Steinem said Thursday at a media preview. "This center is going to change many lives."

The center is the brainchild of Sackler, who originally had thought about creating a freestanding museum for feminist art before approaching the Brooklyn Museum to host the space.

Sackler spoke to The Associated Press a few days before the opening. She said that when she thinks of feminist values, she envisions "equality, equity, justice."

"I see those values in feminism; those are part of what feminist art addresses and speaks to," she said.

"I think it's a wonderful opportunity to work with the public, to engage in subjects in and around the history of women and the impact of women," said Maura Reilly, curator of the center.

Sackler decided the centerpiece of the space would be an iconic work of feminist art, Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party," from 1979. The large-scale installation has 39 place settings around a triangular table, with each setting representing a woman of historical note from ancient goddesses to Georgia O'Keeffe. Tiles on the floor below the table are inscribed with the names of 999 women of significance.

The work, which has been displayed at the museum twice before, now takes up a permanent space in the center. A 300-square-foot "herstory" gallery is meant to work as an addendum for it, hosting exhibitions that focus on the women mentioned in Chicago's work.

The first exhibit, "Pharaohs, Queens and Goddesses," uses items from the museum's extensive Egyptian collection to look at Hatshepsut, one of the few women to become rulers in Egypt, as well as other females in Egyptian history.

Another 3,000-foot space is meant for changing exhibitions. The first one is "Global Feminisms," a survey of contemporary feminist art featuring women from around the world. The center also has space for public and educational programming.

Feminism as a movement and feminist as a term have been subject to heated debate and strong feeling in public discussions, but Sackler said she wasn't concerned about any backlash over naming the space a showcase for feminist art.

"I'm not really worried about it," she said. "It's a place where people can address all of their issues and concerns around gender equality and inequality."

Others applauded the naming decision.

"I think it's really important that it be called that and I'm really delighted that they chose to do that," said Peggy Phelan, a professor of drama and English at Stanford University who has written on art and feminism. "One of the things that name does is it establishes a certain point of view."

And having a dedicated, permanent space for feminist art is a huge step forward from the occasional survey show or retrospective of a particular artist that museums have done, said Peggy Diggs, a senior lecturer in arts and humanities at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.

"Shows have been good, but they come and go. They seem to always carry their hat in their hand or else they look so retrograde, this kind of glimpse into the weird, weird past," she said. "I'm hoping this will provide a much richer, deeper view."

Sackler said she hoped the center would be a model that other museums would follow.

"For me, both feminism and feminist art is not the goal — it's the mean toward an end. The end is equality," she said. "Whether it's equal pay or equal wall space, that's the end."