Existing comment:
Judy Chicago
born Chicago, IL 1939
Immolation, from the portfolio On Fire
1972, printed 2013 inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2018.11.6
The title Immolation and the cross-legged pose of the nude figure bring to mind a famous photograph of the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức, who self-immolated to protest the South Vietnamese government in 1963. Other monks and American peace activists later repeated his radical act. The colorful smoke in Immolation might also evoke the war's "rainbow herbicides" -- most notoriously, Agent Orange -- used by U.S. forcesto defoliate combat zones. Chicago created Immolation when she led the country's first feminist art programs, initially at Fresno State College and then at CalArts. |