Judy Chicago says she wants to live as long as possible; not to transcend her mortal condition, but to be around as her works successively find recognition. A woman holding out against all odds: such is the image of an artist more a visionary than the pioneer she has so often been described as. Unlike the pioneers, Chicago has never joined the “greats” of the white, modernist, Eurocentric canon. Rather she has avoided this historical snare, urging instead the alternatives of to sustain the vision.

Géraldine Gourbe is a philosopher, author, art critic, and curator.