ART BASEL QATAR 2026

A pioneering figure in post-1960s art, Benglis has been at the forefront of material experimentation for six decades, continually inventing new ways of working with different media. Exploring a wide range colors, textures, and forms in her work, she investigates the proprioceptive and sensory experiences of making and viewing sculpture—having a profound impact on contemporary understandings of what sculpture can be.

Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1941, the artist began producing ceramics during her college days, returning to the material in the early 1990s, when she initiated a long series of collaborations with the ceramics fabricator Saxe Patterson, Inc. in Taos, New Mexico and began using the electric clay extruder as part of her process. Like a pasta maker, the electric extruder produces tubes or strips of clay, which the artist catches, cradles, and rapidly shapes by hand in a physical, intuitive “dance.” “I feel the clay; I am the clay, so to speak,” she has said. “I feel this in all my work, that I am the material and what I am doing is embracing it and allowing it to take form.”