PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Lynda Benglis (born 1941, Lake Charles, Louisiana, lives and works in New York) is an artist who was first recognized in the late 1960s with her poured latex and foam works. Benglis's work created a perfectly timed retort to the male dominated fusion of painting and sculpture with the advent of Process Art and Minimalism. Known for her exploration of metaphorical and biomorphic shapes, she is deeply concerned with the physicality of form and how it affects the viewer, using a wide range of materials to render dynamic impressions of mass and surface: soft becomes hard, hard becomes soft and gestures are frozen. Benglis was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts grants, among other commendations. Her work is in some of the most important public collections, including: Guggenheim Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Andrew Bonacina is an independent curator based in London . Nora Lawrence is Artistic Director and Chief Curator at Storm King Art Center in New York. Bibiana Obler is Associate Professor of Art History at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design.
‘Lynda Benglis redefined sculpture in the 1960s and is now at her most prolific.’ – New York Times ‘She’s a globe-trotting artist who can shock and delight at once.’ – Financial Times ‘She rocked the art world.’ – Washington Post ‘Her work has been about seizing art as a tool of empowerment and autonomy.’ – Artforum ‘Benglis has always gone her own way – an attitude that has sometimes got her into trouble. But trouble can lead to great art.’ – Guardian ‘[Benglis’s] work is consistently and irrepressibly ahead of its time.’ — Roberta Smith
