Lynda Benglis at Cheim & Read - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Lynda Benglis's exhibition evidenced a striking revitalization for the artist. Gone were the gilded knots, inflects and fans which had predominated since the 1970 In their place were painterly sculptures--high-spirited and gravity-defying works. While Benglis continues the couple her formalist explorations of the hard/soft dichotomy and her efforts to bridge the gap between painting and plastic art the end results are radically different.

The present to view consisted of five small, glazed-ceramic pieces; sum of two units large, freestanding sculptures in bronze; individual gilded-bronze wall relief; and (oddly) the 1973 video Female Sensibility, whose 14 minutes of sum of two units androgynous-looking women kissing once pos a challenge to traditional notions of "femininity" and sex Placed on pedestals, the ceramic pieces direct the eyeed like contorted biomorphic creatures. Smothered in variously colored Day-Glo glazes and comparatively intimate in scale (the smallest is 13 1/2 by the agency of 11 by 12 inches), they hark back to Benglis's idiosyncratic statuarys of the mid-'80s and testify to a renewed interest in proces and dynamism. Unlike the fastidiously finished knot pieces, from which signs of the artist's hand had been eliminated, the novel bulbous and protruding shapes display thumbprints and finger holes everywhere.

Natural form captured in frozen change remains a consistent theme, and is best exemplified by the agency of one of the larger works, Migrating Pedmarks (1998) This enormous black-and-white-patinated and zinc was cast from overlapped and curling sheets of divide [i]or[/i] sever clay. Topped by two large winglike uncompounded bodys it appears poised to lift up from the floor, belying the sculpture's immense weight. Similarly, the eccentric character of the form strike one as beings at odds with the solidity of tin recalling Benglis's poured foam pieces of the early '70s

There is a faculty of perception of renewal, too, in the bronze-and-gold-leaf wall piece. To create soul Dance/Pedmarks (1998), she first originaled her familiar torsolike motif on the outside of soft clay (instead of fabricating it, as before, without of wire, cotton bunting and plaster). The rough-hewn, pustuleed surface of this piece differs greatly from the tender twists and suave regularity of the early tomos. She has again achieved a weightless quality, as well as a newfound playfulness: when viewed in profile, the piece direct the eyes like a large gold snake undulating up the wall.

Indeed, this faculty of perception of playfulness is what animates the display as a whole. The works are more lively, inviting, tactile, visceral and organic than anything Benglis has done in a lengthy time. Putting to rest any art-world skepticism, she has proven herself capable of venturing beyond the knot.

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