Jo Applin on Lynda Benglis

On the occasion of the exhibition Nœuds en nus (2021), art historian Jo Applin discusses Lynda Benglis’ recent work within the context of the artist’s decades-long career: her witty feminist gestures, an evolving and sensual visual language that challenged the machismo arena of abstract painting, and continues to evade dominant art world politics, in favour of pure material experimentation and transformation.

Applin: ‘Although these works are very contemporary and new in many of the ways in which they think through questions of form, they have a longer history and there’s a really strong connection to the kinds of questions that she has been asking of her materials since the late 60s. The origins of these works begin with the idea of liquidity and paint, that connects her to that longer tradition of abstract expressionist painting. She really challenged us to question what the edges of limits of a work might be and what it means to enter a gallery.’