Lynda Benglis

Since the 1960s, Lynda Benglis (born 1941) has been celebrated for the free, ecstatic forms she has poured, thrown and molded in ceramic, latex, polyurethane and bronze. In her new work, documented in this volume, she turns to handmade paper, which she wraps around a chicken wire armature, often painting the sand-toned surface in bright, metallic colors offset by strokes of deep, coal-based black. At other times she leaves the paper virtually bare. These works reflect the environment in which they were made, the “sere and windblown” landscape of Santa Fe, New Mexico, as Nancy Princenthal writes in her essay. “It is possible to see the bleached bones of the land—its mesas and arroyos; its scatterings of shed snakeskins and animal skeletons—in the new sculptures’ combination of strength and delicacy.” Simultaneously playful and visceral, these works enter into a lively dialogue with Benglis’ previous explorations of materials and form.

This survey of Lynda Benglis' sculpture from the late 1960s to the present begins with her early poured latex and dripped wax pieces, moves through her polyurethane and metal blobs, continues with her pleated and accumulated metal forms, and ends with “Bikini Incandescent Column,” a Noguchi-esque lantern shaped like a mushroom cloud.