20

WEDNESDAY

Only one of the three short films available for screening in the program titled “Judy Chicago and the Politics of Art” actually features Chicago, who’s the subject of a current National Museum of Women in the Arts retrospective, but they’re all about topics close to her art. Up Against the Wall, Miss America is a crudely made but interesting documentation of the 1968 protests against the Miss America Pageant’s idea of femininity. Made three years later, Judy Chicago & the California Girls observes the artist and her all-women class at Fresno State College, engaged in consciousness-raising exercises that now seem a little dated. Of the previewable films, the best is Guerrillas in Our Midst, a 1992 look at the gorilla-mask-wearing women artists who challenged the ’80s Manhattan gallery establishment on grounds of sexism, racism, and—presciently—insider trading. The program, which also includes 1971’s The End of the Art World, begins at 7 p.m. at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW. $5. For reservations call (202) 783-7370. (Mark Jenkins)