The Brooklyn Museum opened "Global Feminisms" at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the new feminist art center that opened the same day on the museum's fourth floor. Co-curated by Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin, the exhibition assembled work by 88 women artists from 62 countries and emphasized art made from 1990 to 2007, countering a Western-centered account of feminist art history. It was visually anchored by Judy Chicago's permanent installation "The Dinner Party," which had become the center's signature work. The show was organized thematically rather than chronologically, grouping works around life cycles, identities, politics, and emotion, and included painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, and performance. Its ambition was not simply to survey feminist art, but to test what the term meant across cultures, media, and political contexts.
It made global contemporary feminist art a first-order museum subject rather than a regional or historical specialty.
