Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago's Early Work, 1963–74 : Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

Before making her widely known and iconic feminist work of the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond, Judy Chicago explored painting, sculpture, and environmental performance, often using innovative industrial techniques and materials, including auto body painting and pyrotechnics.

Chicago in L.A. surveys this less-familiar but significant early work, produced when Chicago lived in Los Angeles and was a participant in the Finish Fetish school, which responded to the rapid industrialization of the West Coast with its own brightly colored, high-gloss form of minimalism. The exhibition places the early work within the arc of Chicago’s broader production and continues the reappraisal of the artist’s importance as a pioneer in the California art scene. Chicago in L.A. also re-examines The Dinner Party as a work that emerged from decades of artistic experimentation, not only with materials, but with feminist community building.