Augusta Stylianou Gallery

Lynda Benglis (born October 25, 1941 in Lake Charles, Louisiana) is an American sculptor known for her wax paintings and poured latex sculptures. Benglis' work is noted for an unusual blend of organic imagery and confrontation with newer media incorporating influences such as Barnett Newman and Andy Warhol.[1] Her early work used materials such as beeswax before moving on large polyurethane pieces in the 1970s and later to gold-leaf, zinc, and aluminum.[1] The validity of much of her work was questioned until the 1980s due to its use of sensuality and physicality.[2]

Like other artists such as Yves Klein, Benglis' mimicked Jackson Pollock's flinging and dripping methods of painting.[3] Works such as Fallen Painting (1968) inform the approach with a feminist perspective. For this work, Benglis smeared Day-Glo paint across the gallery floor invoking "the depravity of the 'fallen' woman" or, from a feminist perspective, a "prone victim of phallic male desire".[3] These brightly colored organic floor pieces were intended to disrupt the male-dominated minimalism movement with their suggestiveness and openness.[4] In 1971, Benglis began to collaborate with Robert Morris, creating Benglis' video Mumble (1972) and Morris' Exchange (1973).[2] Benglis produced several videos during the 1970s in which she explored themes of self-representation and female identity.[5]
Vittorio of 1979; gold leaf, gesso, plaster, cotton, and chicken wire; in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Artforum advertisement
Benglis in her advertisement in the 1974 issue of Artforum

Benglis felt underrepresented in the male-run artistic community and so confronted the "male ethos" in a series of magazine advertisements satirizing pin-up girls and Hollywood actresses.[4] Benglis chose the medium of magazine advertisements as it allowed her complete control of an image rather than allowing it to be run through critical commentary.[6] This series culminated with a particularly controversial one in the November 1974 issue of Artforum featuring Benglis aggressively posed with a giant latex dildo and wearing only a pair of sunglasses promoting an upcoming exhibition of hers at the Paula Cooper Gallery.[7] One of her original ideas for the advertisement had been for her and collaborative partner Robert Morris to work together as a double pin-up, but eventually found that using a double dildo was sufficient as she found it to be "both male and female".[4] Morris, too, put out an advertisement for his work in that month's Artforum which featured himself in full "butch" S&M regalia.[8] Although Benglis' image is now popularly cited as important example of gender performativity in contemporary art, it provoked mixed responses when it first appeared.[9] Artist Barbara Wagner claims that Benglis shows that even with the appropriation of the phallus as a Freudian sign of power, it does not cover her female identity and still emphasizes a female inferiority.[10] Rosalind Krauss and other Artforum personnel attacked Benglis' work in the following month's issue of Artforum describing the advertisement as "exploitative" and "brutalizing".[8] Critic Cindy Nemser of The Feminist Art Journal dismissed the advertisement as well, claiming that the picture showed that Benglis had "so little confidence in her art that she had to resort to kinky cheesecake to push herself over the top."[11] Morris' advertisement, however, generated little commentary, providing evidence for Benglis' view that male artists were encouraged to promote themselves, whereas women were chastised for doing so.[11]

Recent Exhibitions

On November 4, 2009, Benglis’s first European retrospective opened at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, in Dublin, where it will run through January 24. It will then move to Le Consortium, in Dijon, France; the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence; and the New Museum, in New York.[12]
References

1. ^ a b Krane, Susan (Spring-Summer 1992). "Lynda Benglis: Dual Natures". Woman's Art Journal (Atlanta : High Museum of Art, 1990.) 3 (1): 54. ISBN 0939802635. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0270-7993%28199221%2F22%2913%3A1%3C54%3ALBDN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R. Retrieved 2007-06-24.
2. ^ a b Joy, C. (2007). "Benglis, Lynda". Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press. http://www.groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.007881. Retrieved 2007-06-24.
3. ^ a b Jones, Amelia (1998). Body Art/Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 96–97. ISBN 0816627738.
4. ^ a b c Taylor, Brandon (2005). Contemporary Art: Art Since 1970. London: Prentice Hall. pp. 29–30. ISBN 0131181742.
5. ^ Richmond, Susan. "The Ins and Outs of Female Sensibility: A 1973 Video by Lynda Benglis". Camera Obscura. 23.3 (2008): 80-109.
6. ^ Cohen, David; Newman, Amy (September 2002). "Challenging Art: Artforum 1962–1974". The Art Bulletin 84 (3): 536. doi:10.2307/3177317. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0004-3079%28200209%2984%3A3%3C535%3ACAA1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N. Retrieved 2007-06-24.
7. ^ Doss, Erika (2002). "Feminist Art and Black Art". Twentieth-Century American Art. Oxford History of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 184. ISBN 0192842390.
8. ^ a b Chave, Anna C. (2005). "Minimalism and Biography". In Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard. Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art History after Postmodernism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 390–91. ISBN 0520242521.
9. ^ Richmond, Susan. "[1]" "Sizing Up the Dildo: Lynda Benglis' Artforum Advertisement as a Feminist Icon", n.paradoxa 15 (January 2005): 24-34.
10. ^ Wagner, Barbara (2005). "Underneath the Clothes: Transvestites Without Vests". In Margaret Sönser Breen and Fiona Peters. Genealogies of Identity: Interdisciplinary Readings on Sex and Sexuality. New York City: Editions Rodopi BV.. pp. 140–42. ISBN 9042017589.
11. ^ a b Buszek, Maria Elena (2006). "Our Bodies/Ourselves". Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture. Duke University Press. pp. 288–92. ISBN 0822337460.
12. ^ Douglas, Sarah. “My Brilliant Career: Lynda Benglis” Art+Auction, November 2009.

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