Judy Chicago - Womanhouse (1971)

Women's labor formed the subject matter of Womanhouse, a large scale cooperative project executed [as part of] the Feminist Art Program at CalArts where Judy Chicago, in collaboration with CalArts instructor Miriam Schapiro (Chicago had moved the program which she founded in 1970 at Fresno State College to CalArts in the fall of 1971), [took] an abandoned Hollywood house [and] transformed [it] into a series of fantasy environments. Womanhouse explored and challenged - with a complex mixture of longing, nostalgia, horror, and rage - the domestic role historically assigned to women in middle-class American society.

The Nurturant Kitchen dramatically evoked the exhaustion and degradation of women trapped in selfless service to others. Dozens of foam-molded fried eggs descended its sickly pink walls from ceiling to floor, gradually metamorphosing into pendulous breasts, a metaphor for the burden of perpetually feeding and nurturing others.

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