Brooklyn Museum of Art

I had the great fortune to be invited out to the Brooklyn Museum of Art last Saturday with Anna (British woman who studies Feminism and museums), Sandy (American woman who does museum studies), Cyrus (former Religious studies, currently fellow TCer), and Michael Mueller (American, extremely nonchalant man). The BMA (as it shall now be called) hosts free admission the first Saturday of every month with a number of activities including children's workshops and live music. So down the number two train we went... (Pictured: Anna, Sandy, Cyrus, Michael)

When we arrived we were all shocked by the beauty of the building. They had kept the older facade and built in front of it with modern glass. The free admission and range of activities had drawn a diverse crowd; young families with children, older couples, middle-school kids in packs, and droves of twenty-somethings. We started out in the cafeteria, fueling up, and discussing mostly Mormonism and misconceptions. I-House has recently gotten a ton of interns from Brigham Young University for the summer and the Discovery Channel has started airing a special on Mormons. Coincidence.... I think not!

Once fed, we headed over to listen to "Taigaa!" who describe themselves as a "Feminist art rock band inspired by Korean pop, punk, and Goth. I'm not sure if they were meant to sound awful or if we just couldn't hear their music over the dozens of children standing on stage playing their own hand-made instruments. Either way, it was cacophonous, and we left as soon as we got there. The BMA has recently been endowed with a Feminist art wing, which is the star of the show, and that's where we were off to.

The Feminist art wing was made specifically to house a large piece of art by Judy Chicago. According to our personal Feminist/museum guide, Anna, Chicago was one of the most significant Feminist artists ever, and this particular piece we were going to see is considered the most significant Feminist artwork of the 1970s. It is called The Dinner Party, and consists of a series of banners that one looks at on the way into the exhibition room and a triangular series of three tables. The three tables are set each with 10 table settings. Each setting has the same goblet, knife and fork. Each setting has a different place mat and plate, each representing the famous woman who's name is on each place mat. On the floor, beneath the tables, are 2,300 porcelain tiles containing the names of 999 mythical and historical woman written in gold. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of each place setting is that painted onto the ceramic of each plate is an artistic representation of each woman's vagina. (Pictured left, Hypatia. Pictured right: Natalie Barney)

On the first table are the names of women of significance from prehistory to classical Rome. They are Primordial Goddess, Fertile Goddess, Ishtar, Kali, Snake Goddess, Sophia, Amazon, Hatshepsut, Judith (go Jews!), Sappho, Aspasia, Boadaceia, and Hypatia. The second table has the names of women from the beginning of Christianity to the Reformation; Marcella, Saint Bridget, Theodora, Hrosvitha, Trotula, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hildegarde of Bingen, Petronilla de Meath, Christine de Pisan, Isabella d'Este, Elizabeth R., Artemisia Gentileschi, and Anna van Schurman. The last table seats women from the American Revolution through the Women's Revolution; Anne Hutchinson, Sacajawea, Caroline Herschel, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Emily Dickinson, Ethel Smyth, Margaret Sanger, Natalie Barney, Virginia Woolf, and Georgia O'Keeffe. On the last table, the vagina became ever more three dimensional until they were truly coming off of the plates. Most of them were quite pretty, only one (Emily Dickinson) did I find mildly horrifying. (Pictured: Virginia Woolf and Georgia O'Keeffe)

From there we wandered through the rest of the Feminist wing, which tended to be more bizarre and distressing than not. Sandy and I went to another floor to visit an exhibition by Devorah Sperber called The Eye of the Artist. It is truly incredible. This woman takes spools of thread and hangs them so that they replicate a famous painting upside down. One then looks through a glass ball and sees the spools right-side up and with incredible detail. My AUnt Linda had actually told me about Sperbers works before and I hadn't been able to understand. It's best if you see a picture. She had done The Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, and van Eyck. We wandered around through a few more exhibits but nothing else really caught our eyes.

One of the floors of the museum had been transformed at 9 pm into a Bhangra dance floor. Those same middle school kids, old couples and young families were all crowded together dancing away. Will and his friend joined us from I-House as well as a hair stylist friend of Anna's. We danced until 11pm, when the museum closed, and headed out to the grass in front of the museum. We sat around, discussing Israeli gay films, watching a young couple get way too frisky for the out-of-doors, and being circled by two young boys playing tag. It was the most edifying, incredibly fun, wonderful evening! (Pictured: Cyrus, Me, Will, and Sandy)

Pictured: Cyrus, Me, Will, Sandy