In May 2024, Thomas Dane Gallery will present together two seminal groups of works from the 1970s by Lynda Benglis. The Knots, realised between 1972 and 1976, and made of cotton bunting, plaster, sparkle paint, sprayed metal or wire mesh, will cohabit at 11 Duke Street, St James’s with a group of her single- channel video works, made at just about the same time – showcasing Benglis’ trailblazing use of new technologies and materials, to shape her corporeal explorative practice.
Since the 1960s, Lynda Benglis (b. 1941, Lake Charles, Louisiana) has been celebrated for her free, ecstatic forms that are simultaneously playful and visceral, organic and abstract. Benglis began her career in the midst of Postminimal art, pushing the traditions of painting and sculpture into new territories. Her work— comprised of a variety of materials, from beeswax, latex, and polyurethane foam to later innovations with plaster, gold, vaporised metals, glass, ceramics, and paper—demonstrates a continued fascination with process and experimentation. The embrace of flowing forms, colour, and sensual surfaces plays a large part in her continuous investigation of sensory experience.
Selected institutional solo exhibitions include: Lynda Benglis, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas TX (2022); Lynda Benglis, National Gallery of Art, Washignton DC (2021); In the Realm of the Senses, Museum of Cycladic Art, presented by NEON, Athens, Greece (2019); Lynda Benglis: Face Off, Kistefos-Museet, Jevnaker, Norway (2018); Lynda Benglis: Secrets, Bergen Assembly, KODE Art Museums of Bergen, Norway (2016); Lynda Benglis, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen CO (2016); Lynda Benglis: Water Sources, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York NY (2015); Lynda Benglis, The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England (2015); and Lynda Benglis: Figures, The SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah GA (2012), among many others.
Selected public collections include: Tate, London; Dallas Museum of Art TX; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago IL; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles CA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York NY; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, among many others.
Benglis is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts grants, among other commendations.
