Judy Chicago
Revelations: An Illuminated Manuscript, 2024
Hand-signed and numbered by the artist
8 x 10.5 in. (20.3 x 26.7 cm)
Bespoke wooden box, unique letterpress cover, velvet lining. Hand-bound book, vegan leather, with holographic foil stamping, 12 k white gold gilded edge
Digital print on Epson Hot Press Bright
Edition of 25 + 5 APS
£5,000 (incl. VAT)
Judy Chicago, And God Created Life, 2023. Prismacolor on paper, 30 x 22.25 in. (76.2 x 56.5 cm). © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo © Donald Woodman/ARS, NY. Courtesy of the artist.
Each edition set, manuscript and print, is signed and numbered by the artist and comes unframed. Prices of the artwork are liable to change. As the limited edition sells out, prices of the artwork are subject to increase and the price will be clearly indicated.
The exhibition Judy Chicago: Revelations (23 May – 1 September 2024) takes its name from an unknown illuminated manuscript Chicago penned in the early 1970s while creating The Dinner Party (1974–79) – a monumental installation celebrating the achievements of 1038 women, now permanently on display at the Centre for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York. In conjunction with the exhibition, the manuscript has been updated and published for the first time by Serpentine and Thames & Hudson. Drawing on Chicago’s extensive research into goddess worship and women’s history, it offers readers a radical retelling of mythological creation and shares her lifelong vision of a just and equitable world.
Revelations is foundational to Chicago’s decades-long practice and a work that she believed would never be published in her lifetime. Inspired by illuminated manuscripts of the late Middle Ages, Revelations: An Illuminated Manuscript by Judy Chicago combines visual and literary elements and features archival and newly created drawings in the artist’s highly pigmented Prismacolor pencils – one of Chicago’s favourite mediums. On the occasion of the exhibition, Serpentine has collaborated with the artist to produce a distinctive presentation of this work. Each book has been signed and numbered by the artist and encased in a bespoke wooden box with a unique letterpress cover and velvet lining. The book has been printed on sumptuous, archival-quality paper and hand-bound in vegan leather, with holographic foil stamping and 12 k white gold gilded edges. Also mounted in the box is a signed and numbered print of And God Created Life (2023) which serves as the frontispiece.
Executed in Chicago’s signature vibrant blue, green and red Prismacolor pencils, And God Created Life (2023) was created especially for Revelations and is Chicago's most recent work included in the exhibition. Foregrounding a shift in the artist’s perspective from an inherently female position to a more all-encompassing view, it calls for an expanded and inclusive concept of God, one that is neither distinctly male nor female. For Chicago, the vision of a male God, found within many cultures and religions, “inherently places women in a secondary position, one that we will never escape until divinity is seen as both female AND male.” Instead of a bearded older man, Chicago’s vision of God sits beyond the racial and binary gender spectrum, replete with breasts, a vulva and a penis.
© Photo: readsreads.info