For the first time, Serpentine and Thames & Hudson publish a manuscript Chicago penned in the early 1970s that provides the underlying vision of equality that shaped her career.

Serpentine is honoured to present Revelations, an exhibition of trailblazing artist, author, educator, cultural historian and feminist Judy Chicago (b. 1939, Chicago, USA). On view at Serpentine North from 23 May to 1 September 2024, this is the artist’s largest solo presentation in a London institution.

Chicago came to prominence in the late 1960s when she challenged the male-dominated landscape of the art world by making work that was boldly from a woman’s perspective. An artistic polymath, Chicago’s work is defined by a commitment to craft and experimentation, either through her choice of subject matter or the method and materials she employs.

Throughout her six-decade career, Chicago has contested the absence and erasure of women in the Western cultural canon, developing a distinctive visual language that gives visibility to their experiences. To this aim, Chicago has produced both individual and collaborative projects that grappled with themes of birth and creation, the social construct of masculinity, her Jewish identity, notions of power and powerlessness, extinction, and expressed her longstanding concern for climate justice.

Judy Chicago: Revelations charts the full arc of Chicago’s career with a specific focus on drawing, highlighting rarely seen works. Several immersive, multi-media elements, including an AR app, a video recording booth, and other audio-visual components, set this show apart from previous surveys of Chicago’s work. With never-before-seen sketchbooks, films and slides, video interviews of participants from The Dinner Party (1974–79), audio recordings, and a guided tour of The Dinner Party by Chicago herself, this novel approach to exhibiting Chicago’s work makes the artist’s presence felt throughout the gallery.

The exhibition takes its name from an unknown illuminated manuscript Chicago penned in the early 1970s which will be published for the first time in conjunction with the exhibition by Serpentine and Thames & Hudson. Titled Revelations, this visionary work is a radical retelling of human history recovering some of the stories of women that society sought to erase, and one that Chicago never imagined would be published in her lifetime. Audio excerpts from the book can be heard in each of the galleries through an accompanying audio guide, seamlessly creating a link between visual art and written word that has occupied the artist’s practice since the 1970s.

In the Beginning from Birth Project, 1982 Prismacolor on paper 65 x 389 in. (165.1 x 988.06 cm) © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo © Donald Woodman/ARS, NY Courtesy of the artist

Judy Chicago Peeling Back, 1974 Offset Photo-lithograph on rag paper 28.5 x 22 in. (72.39 x 55.88 cm) Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation Collection
© Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo © Donald Woodman/ARS, NY Courtesy of the artist