In 1972, Suzanne Lacy, Judy Chicago, Sandra Orgel, and Aviva Rahmani staged a performance during which women dipped their naked bodies in metal vats of eggs, cow blood, and clay, then were wrapped in sheets, while the audience listened to an audiotape of women talking about being raped. Animal innards were nailed to the walls, and eggshells, ropes, and chains were strewn on the floor.
The performance, called , “harnessed the power of repulsion to make its point—one they found could not be expressed in language alone,” writes Lauren Elkin in her politically perceptive and disarming exploration of feminist art. “The old ways of making art or telling stories were no longer equal to the task of
