Lynda Benglis

Description

The definitive monograph on American sculptor and visual artist Lynda Benglis, one of the most important living artists today Since her arrival in New York from her native Lousiana in the late 1960s, Lynda Benglis gained recognition for creating a groundbreaking body of work that challenged at once sculpture and painting conventions in an until then largely male-dominated art world. A tireless explorer of new shape and materials, Benglis's gestural and formal approach to art-making has, over the years, elevated her to iconic status, her work being evidence of how process can wield pliant matter and let it 'take its own form'

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 Chief Curator at The Hepworth Wakefield, England. 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.

'[Benglis's] work is consistently and irrepressibly ahead of its time.' -- Roberta Smith 'Benglis has always gone her own way - an attitude that has sometimes got her into trouble. But trouble can lead to great art.' - Guardian 'Her work has been about seizing art as a tool of empowerment and autonomy.' - Artforum 'Lynda Benglis redefined sculpture in the 1960s and is now at her most prolific.' - New York Times 'She rocked the art world.' - Washington Post 'She's a globe-trotting artist who can shock and delight at once.' - Financial Times