© Lynda Benglis / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
On view
Theodora Walton William Walton III Pavilion
Peter B. Lewis Gallery
Omekron, from the series Knots,
1974
By looping and tying rope made of plaster, cotton bunting, and aluminum, she created irregular forms and drooping shapes that respond to tension and gravity. Conforming to the size and proportions of Benglis’s own body, the work includes glitter and fake gemstones, an example of the artist’s ongoing interest in integrating materials associated with popular craft, mechanization, and industry.
More Context
The works that Lynda Benglis produced in the 1960s and 1970s constitute radical interventions into existing sculptural conventions. Made with such unorthodox materials as wax, latex, polyurethane foam, and fabric, Benglis’s sculptures are characterized by an emphatic materiality, even sensuousness, as seen in <em>Omnicron</em>, from her <em>Knots</em> series. Produced by looping and tying a kind of "rope" made of plaster, cotton bunting, and aluminum into a knot, <em>Omnicron</em> conforms to the general size and proportions of Benglis’s own body. Like the post-Minimalist sculpture with which it is associated, <em>Omnicron</em> is comprised of irregular, asymmetrical forms and floppy, drooping shapes that exploit both tension and gravity. The addition of glitter and fake gemstones interjects an element of kitsch. Indeed, Benglis is well known for testing the boundaries between taste and vulgarity: in a winter 1973 exhibition at the Clocktower Gallery in New York, for instance, she embellished the gallery in which her <em>Knot</em> sculptures were installed with a string of Christmas lights.
Information
1974
