Lynda Benglis

On Screen

Curated by PRAXES
Part of Bergen Assembly

As part of Bergen Assembly 2016, PRAXES presents a year-long investigation of the two unassociated artistic practices of Lynda Benglis and Marvin Gaye Chetwynd. From February to December, independent work constellations are episodically hosted by changing venues in Bergen.

The exhibition On Screen presents three video works by Lynda Benglis. Made in the early 1970s—Benglis never returned to the medium after four years of intense experimentation—this exhibition highlights the artist’s exploration of sexuality and identity play, layering and multiplying the seduction of the screen.

Employing several iterations of each frame, posing and filming herself in front of the monitor, with the works Collage and Now Benglis amasses swirling abysses of artificial color and hypnotizing rhythm while Female Sensibility doubles the female figure in an elongated kiss between two women (Benglis and Marilyn Lenkowsky). Connecting her hands-on, process-oriented sculptural work to self-reflexive interrogations of a newborn medium, Benglis confronts her own image with a salty and humorous aftertaste, coyly asking: “Do you wish to direct me?” 

A major figure of American art since the 1960s, Lynda Benglis (b. 1941, US) has brushed wax, poured latex and phosphorescent foam, layered video, hijacked advertising, air sprayed metals, stretched paper, and cut up ceramic. Benglis has repeatedly chosen drastic departures, foreign materials, and collaborative experiments over any signature style or trajectory. The exhibition On Screen is the fourth module in a series of meticulous reinstallations, displays of recent work, devil-may-care detours, and attempts at tracing material histories of Benglis’s artistic practice.


Lynda Benglis
Now, 1973, Female Sensibility, 1973, Collage, 1973
Installation view. Photo: Thor Brødreskift