Posters
My intentions in publishing this poster was to identify and commemorate women artists, who were getting little recognition at the time, by presenting them as the grand subject – while spoofing the patriarchy for cutting women out of positions of power and authority. Even though the Last Supper is a Christian image, the point was to challenge all organized religion to prove that they are no longer a major cultural force that subordinates women.
In the poster, Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper by cutting out the male heads from Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and replacing them with the heads of women artists, sacred male territory was invaded and a challenge was delivered to the established assumption that, because of their gender women do not have direct access to the sacred. The poster raises multiple issues and questions including the repercussive ways in which men and women are signified in patriarchal religions: the story of Eve, denying ordination to women as priests, rabbis, mullahs (in Islam) and general control of their bodies and sexuality, limitations that are not inflicted on men.
The interest in this poster that continues today arises, I believe, from the lack of real power and position for women in organized religion. While this position has not changed substantially, there is considerable pressure to make these changes and this tension is most likely the underlying cause of resurgent interest, a quarter of a century after the poster was created. In spite of resistance in some Christian denominations, Last Supper has been favorably featured in Witness, a publication of the Episcopal Church, and has been purchased to hang in other churches on their bulletin boards and in their offices.
Because I did not personally know these women in 1971, my selections for the central panel were fairly arbitrary. That is, they were not political choices based on personal associations, but were instead focused on diversity of race and artistic mediums. The border included every photograph of a woman artist that I could find, with most of the 82 photographs coming directly from the artists themselves. The composition of Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper, with its central image surrounded by a strong border, and the subject matter a dinner party and role-reversal influenced art projects both in and out of the feminist art movement.
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