Art: An Obsessive Feminist Pantheon

Judy Chicago's Dinner Party turns history into agitprop

A great deal of hokey art has been made in the service of excellent causes.

So it is with The Dinner Party, an installation by Judy Chicago (formerly Gerowitz), 41, and some 400 assistants. Five years in the making, it has been shown with resounding popular success —and considerable controversy—in San Francisco, Houston and Boston, and is now packing in the crowds at the Brooklyn Museum (through Jan. 18). It is by far the most ambitious work of art yet made to carry a specifically feminist content—in this case, an emblematic "history" of women.

The format...