PRESENTATION: Lynda Benglis-Pleated Works
Since first gaining recognition in the late 1960s, Lynda Benglis’s work has vastly expanded upon the language of that era through a radical exploration of materials, with an emphasis on their physicality, form, and relationship to the viewer. Biomorphic and at times painterly in her approach to working in three dimensions, the formal qualities of her work underscore the tactile and visceral nature of her practice.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Mnuchin Gallery Archive
The exhibition “Pleated Works” highlights Lynda Benglis’ use of the pleated form from the late 1970s through the 1990s. 15 works are on view, ranging in scale from “Current (1979) to “Tama” (1989). Titles such as “Toyopet Crown” (1989) and “Tonneau” (1992-1993) nod to Benglis’s love of cars, while others such as “Scarab” (1990) and “Screen” (1993-1998) conjure specific images in the minds-eye of the viewer, imbuing the sculptures with both personal and formal referents. The exhibition focuses on Benglis’s gold leaf and metallized pleats. Benglis worked on the gold leaf pleats from 1979-1982, and the metallized pleats from 1982 through the 1990s, spanning two decades of her practice. Inspired in part by the fluting and fan motifs of ancient Aegean columns she encountered during a trip to the Louvre in 1979—motifs which directly evoke Benglis’s Mediterranean heritage—the pleats began after other experimentations with fanned and knotted shapes, metallizing, and gold leaf in the early-mid 1970s. Benglis worked with various fabricators to produce these sculptures, although it was her own hand that pleated the wire mesh and knotted, tied, or twisted it into distinctive configurations that convey a sense of voluptuous form and movement. A vaporized metal such as zinc, aluminum, or copper would subsequently be sprayed over the folded mesh, creating a shell-like surface that is finally polished, although the crevices between each pleat evade that polishing, creating a contrast which accentuates the texture, volume, and varying effects of light of each sculpture. “The metallizing technique is particularly suited to Benglis’s interest in transforming states of matter, in organic processes and in the comparisons of hard/soft and liquid/solid that continue throughout her work,” art historian Susan Krane has aptly stated. While Benglis’s work defies simple, linear through-lines, one avenue of entry into understanding the pleated works lies in the physical and conceptual connotations of the fold—both the shapely weaving of materials and the Fold as understood by Gilles Deleuze. One could also view the pleats through the lens of value or industry, represented by the precious-looking metals Benglis chooses to encase her mesh shapes within. Illustrating an interplay between the crafted and the manufactured, the dynamic and the static, the fluid and the constructed, the pleats evince a disquieting beauty that is at once almost menacing in their mysterious aura and yet enduringly attractive. All taken together, the pleated works offer viewers a distilled way to venture into Benglis’s expansive oeuvre.
Photo: Lynda Benglis, Tempest (Juliet), 1991, stainless steel wire mesh, sprayed zinc, aluminum, 213.4 x 198.1 x 45.7 cm, © Lynda Benglis / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York, Courtesy the artist and Mnuchin Gallery
Info: Mnuchin Gallery, 45 East 78 Street, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 2/11-4/12/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.mnuchingallery.com
