Judy Chicago Untitled (Kroll Artist)

Logline

When Judy Chicago, a trailblazing feminist artist once dismissed by the establishment, steps into the limelight and the #metoo revolution at 80-something, her iconic six decade fight against the women’s erasure from the art world takes on new significance. Born Judith Sylvia Cohen to a progressive Jewish household in Chicago, Judy’s intrepid activism was inspired by her father, a Marxist labor organizer. Emerging from UCLA art school where male professors belittled her “feminine” perspective, she began feverishly generating a parade of provocative, multimedia works quite literally designed to embody women’s experience. Womanhouse (1972) transforms a dilapidated LA mansion into an immersive women’s space; The Dinner Party (1979) creates a place for the forgotten achievements of women throughout western history; Birth Project (1980-85) represents childbirth through the undervalued medium of needle-work. Judy’s inquiry into power and powerlessness continued with her installation Holocaust Project: From Darkness to Light (1984-1993); and her growing interest in the ways being Jewish shaped her art and life culminated in the 2007 exhibition, “Judy Chicago: Jewish Identity,” at Hebrew Union College. Now, late in life, as Judy celebrates her first ever career retrospective and new heights of international renown and acceptance, she embarks on an exciting chapter of revelatory creative output. Seamlessly traversing past and present, Judy Chicago Untitled unlocks an electric story of startling resilience and ingenuity, blindspots and blunders, asking whether art can actually transform the world.

Director Kate Amend was selected as the 2022 Kroll Artist, which includes an additional grant award to the team.

Phase of Support: Development

Kate Amend - Director

Kate Amend has edited two Academy Award winning documentaries, Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport and The Long Way Home. She’s the recipient of the IDA’s inaugural award for Outstanding Achievement in Editing, the ACE Eddie Award and an Emmy nomination for her film, The Case Against 8. She represents the Documentary Branch on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science and is an advisor at the Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Labs. Amend has a deep knowledge and understanding of Judy Chicago’s work. She broke into documentaries as an apprentice editor on Johanna Demetrakas’ film Right Out of History, which documented the making of Judy Chicago’s sculpture The Dinner Party and she has remained involved in Judy’s work. Since then, she’s brought her unique creative sense to dozens of films including: Serena, Sound of Redemption, Foster, First Position, Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, Feminists: What Were They Thinking? and the Netflix Series, The Keepers.

Tim Marrinan - Director

Tim Marrinan directed and produced the critically acclaimed feature documentary BURDEN which explored the life and work of seminal artist Chris Burden. Made over the final years of Burden’s life, the film captured the energy and danger of his controversial early performance works and traced his evolution from young boundary-pushing artist to elder statesman of the LA art scene. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it was selected as one of the “must-see” films of the festival by publications including Rolling Stone, Time Out, The Village Voice, The Hollywood Reporter and others. It was released theatrically in the US by Magnolia Pictures and is available internationally on Netflix.

Lisa Remington - Producer

An Emmy-nominated filmmaker, Lisa Remington has produced over two dozen documentaries including Nathaniel Kahn’s art world exploration The Price of Everything (Sundance 2018), Johanna Demetrakas’ inspiring Netflix Original Feminists: What Were They Thinking?, and Mark Jonathan Harris’ myth-busting look at the Los Angeles foster care system Foster. Other projects include Rory Kennedy’s portrait of her mother Ethel (Sundance 2012, HBO); Davis Guggenheim’s Obama campaign short The Road We’ve Traveled; and Jessica Yu’s short about net neutrality, made for the Ford Foundation, foreveryone.net. Lisa co-produced Sam Feder’s Disclosure (Sundance 2020), Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee’s Cesar’s Last Fast (Sundance 2014), and Lucy Walker’s Countdown to Zero (Sundance 2010). Lisa serves as a mentor for Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Program and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Project logline and bios courtesy of the grantees.