Lynda Benglis
Lynda Benglis, a formidable trailblazer who sets her own tempo and defies labels, is getting her artworld dues.
Image credit: Lynda Benglis, Installation view Lynda Benglis: Recent Sculptures, Turner Contemporary, 2024. Photo: Beth Saunders. © Lynda Benglis. VAGA at ARS/Copyright Agency, 2024. Courtesy © Turner Contemporary
Fearlessness, innovative, chameleon-like, mercurial and visceral are words that come to mind when looking at the oeuvre of the American artist Lynda Benglis. She’s the embodiment of innumerable iterations of what constitutes contemporary art – from abstract to representational, from the use of polyurethane to bronze to neon, few artists have been so singular in pursuit of their own artistic narrative. Adrian Searle succinctly sums up Benglis by observing that “her work can be sexy and funny, gorgeous and faecal.”
Benglis was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1941. Her father ran a business selling building supplies, which impacted her work and appreciation of materiality. Her Greek grandmother was also influential in her formative younger years – in an interview with Anna Dickie for Ocula Magazine in 2015, Benglis described her as “extremely significant. Her husband died very early – 1955. She was my godmother, as well as my grandmother. My grandmother travelled in her 40s, and this was unusual, and it impacted the way I was. It set a standard for me.”
Benglis earned her BFA degree in 1964 from Newcomb College in New Orleans, studying ceramics and painting. She’s since received the Guggenheim Fellowship (1975), grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1979 and 1990) and an honorary doctorate from the Kansas City Art Institute (2000), among other such recognitions. ... Subscribe to read this article in full
