April 8, 2025 • 43 mins
In the late 1960s and early 70s, Lynda Benglis dissolved the boundaries between painting and sculpture through fearless experimentation, creating revolutionary works that sought to capture and freeze her gestures. The American artist, born in 1941 in Louisiana but Greek by heritage, developed her distinctive visual language after moving to New York in the 1960s, where she quickly integrated into, and made her own name in, one of the most dynamic and diverse creative decades of the C20th.
She pioneered new approaches to materiality, beginning with beeswax reliefs shaped with blowtorches before creating her breakthrough "Pours" series—vibrant puddles of pigmented polyurethane poured directly onto gallery floors, where they would flow together and freeze into psychedelic sculptural forms. As she famously stated, "I wasn't breaking away from painting, but trying to redefine what it was."
Beyond her artistic innovations, Benglis boldly challenged the gender politics of the art world. Her provocative 1974 Artforum advertisement directly confronted the male-dominated power structures of the industry. This image, which she arranged to publish after editors rejected it, has since been cited by The New York Times as one of the 25 works that defined art of the contemporary modern period.
Her market has experienced dramatic acceleration only recently, despite her longstanding reputation and consistent presence in major museums worldwide. From her early wax works, through her pours and knots, to her signature pleated metallic sculptures, Benglis captures what she calls "an implosion or the beginning of an explosion of energy." Her auction record jumped from $245,000 in 2021 to $1.1 million in 2022, suggesting collectors are finally recognizing what art historians have long understood—that Benglis represents a rare combination of historical significance, formal innovation, and market potential.
Want to learn more about collecting significant artists like Lynda Benglis? Visit nordicartpartners.com for expert guidance on building meaningful collections with confidence.
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Episode Transcript
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Jeppe Curth (00:00):
Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge for Nordic
Art Partners.
In today's episode, we'llexplore the career of Linda
Benglis, a groundbreakingAmerican sculptor known for her
radical experimentation withmaterials and form.
Joining me, as always, is ourart expert, Nicholas Robinson,
and I'm your host, Jeppe Curth.
Let's get started.
Nicholas Robinson (00:20):
It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million
Selling here at Christie's.
$400 million is the bid and thepiece is sold.
We've all heard about it.
Sometimes it's front-page newsImportant works of art are being
sold for incredible sums ofmoney.
But can you get involved andbecome a part of the exclusive
(00:42):
club yourself, and how do youget started while avoiding
buying the wrong things?
That's exactly what thispodcast is about.
This is the Collector's Edgefrom Nordic Art Partners, a
podcast for those of youinterested in the mechanics of
the art industry, want adviceabout putting money into art, or
(01:02):
simply want to buy somethingfor your walls, to beautify your
surroundings.
Whatever your objectives, it ispossible to put money into art
wisely, to be considered,thoughtful and well-informed in
your choices and actions.
Welcome to the art ofcollecting with an eye for
curated beauty and practicalvalue.
Jeppe Curth (01:25):
Hi Nick.
Nicholas Robinson (01:26):
Hi Jeppe, how are you doing?
Very well.
Jeppe Curth (01:29):
How are you today?
I'm good, thank you, becausetoday we're going to talk about
Linda Benglis.
Yes, we are the great LindaBenglis.
Yes, indeed.
So, as usual, can you give us abit of background on her early
days and how old she is andwhere she's from?
Nicholas Robinson (01:47):
Of course, certainly.
She was born in 1941 in LakeCharles in Louisiana, making her
84 years old.
Her father, I believe, was inbusiness and she had a pretty
comfortable middle classchildhood, from what I can
understand.
But key to her childhood washer, or one of the keys to her
(02:10):
childhood, or her formativeyears, was her relationship with
her grandmother.
Her family is of Greekextraction and her grandmother
was widowed at a young age.
Inheriting property whichenabled her as a not a super
young child, but maybe as ayoung teenager, enabled her to
travel in Greece with her, whichbecame very important for her
(02:34):
to experience another culture,and she was also exposed to the
classical antiquity all aroundtraveling amongst the islands.
So this is something that sheremembers as a very sort of
formative influence on herunderstanding of the world.
She studied at McNeice StateUniversity in her hometown of
(02:56):
Lake Charles and then went to doa BFA in 1964 at Tulane where
she studied ceramics andpainting, and her attitude
towards painting was verytypical of artists of the day in
that they were very inspired,influenced by the dominant idiom
of the post-war period, thatbeing abstract expressionist
(03:18):
painting.
So she very much admired thisstyle of an older generation of
artists, but she was also verycurious how she could not only
adopt this but adapt it todevelop it or push it in further
directions.
So, following her graduation in1964, she spent a short time
(03:40):
teaching young children.
She spent a short time teachingyoung children and thereafter
she moved to New York where shevery quickly met many of the
leading artists of the day,which would have been a very
diverse and influential,powerful group of artists,
numbering among them Warhol,judd Sol, lewitt, eva Hess,
(04:02):
barnett, newman, all of whom shedeveloped various relationships
with.
Also, there are someinteresting anecdotes about her
very opinionated attitudetowards work by Dan Flavin,
robert Ryman.
(04:26):
So she's already, even as ayoung artist, moving to New York
for the first time.
She is fearlessly embracing theartists that formed the
avant-garde community there.
Uh, as a young, uh sort ofprofessional person or or
whatever, trying to make her wayin the world, she, she actually
took a job as an assistant atthe Bicut gallery, working for
Klaus Curtis.
Um, we've covered theimportance of his gallery in
(04:46):
another, in another episodewhere we were discussing the
career of Joan Snyder.
In fact, um, subsequently, sheI'm not sure if she worked at
the Paula Cooper gallery or shehad her first, um sort of
representational relationshipwith them.
But this was also a importantstep for her to be involved with
this, which at this time was asort of nascent gallery as well.
(05:10):
So that's her early biography,I guess you could say.
Jeppe Curth (05:16):
Okay, Thank you, Nick.
So tell us about her work.
What makes it distinctive andhow did she achieve this?
Maybe her first breakthroughand recognition.
Nicholas Robinson (05:27):
Well, she.
So we've given a littlebackground about the various
artists of this period.
You have all of these, you know, slightly competing aesthetics,
this sort of splintering ofexpression going in various
directions.
You've got, you know, you'vestill got this sort of powerful
(05:51):
abstract expressionisttrajectory that flows through
painting.
You've got pop art, which, ofcourse, began at the beginning
of the 1960s, and then you havevarious sort of minimalist
trends as well, as epitomizedmostly by Donald Judd, carl
(06:11):
Andre, sol LeWitt, dan Flavin aswell, of course, and also a man
that she was in a relationshipwith, robert Morris.
So she began her career in themidst of this post-minimal
generation.
Um, some of the work was ofthis generation was much more
focused on, um, very sort ofhigh-minded ideas, uh,
(06:33):
conceptual ideas about what anartwork could be and should be,
and some of it was much morerooted in, uh, the materiality
and the process and thephysicality.
So she was focused on onsculpture, but she was focused
on sculpture, uh, essentiallywith the attitude of a painter.
Um, she actually consideredherself a painter, uh,
(06:56):
interested in painterlymaterials and where this idea of
the gesture could take her.
Um, and what she did is thatshe very clearly, as a pioneer,
in this way she conflated bothpainting and sculpture, um, so
that the examples of paintingand the techniques and
(07:18):
methodologies and even sort ofthe materials of painting were
expanded into three dimensionsand then sort of frozen in space
.
So it was a way of freezing thegesture, if you like.
And common to all of her bodiesof work is a purely abstract
form, many of which are verytypically inspired by natural or
(07:41):
organic matter.
Sometimes they have a verybiomorphic feeling, but there's
always a sense of movement inthem, a sense of movement being
arrested, a lot of sinuous formsthat are frozen in their moment
of creation.
And then the other thing thatshe became very sort of noted
(08:03):
for was an experimentation withmaterials.
She was always very driven by ahighly innovative approach to
both the technical and the allkinds of materials not very
commonly associated with fineart media, such as beeswax,
(08:32):
latex, polyurethane, and thensurface materials that were not
really associated with fine artat all Glitter, sparkles,
luminous paint which were oftenused to sort of, I suppose, add
a certain decoration to theforms that she had created.
Jeppe Curth (08:52):
Okay, nick.
So she came to prominence inthe 1960s among a generation of
artists who took variousexamples from abstract
expressionism and minimalism.
And try to develop thislanguage right.
Nicholas Robinson (09:06):
Yes, absolutely.
She definitely was absorbingall of these examples and kind
of tried to encompass manydifferent ways of considering
them in her bodies of work.
I mean, the first body of workshe first became noted for was
(09:28):
was very much developing this,this theme of the gesture.
Um, and one of the things thatshe's gone on to do in in many
of her bodies of work is is iskind of record the behavior of a
fluid substance in action, orsome kind of motion in action
that is then frozen and arrestedin a final form.
She, alongside peers of herslike Eva Hess or Richard Serra,
(09:53):
she's very key in that sheallowed, often she allowed the
process of making to dictate theshape of the finished works,
the shape of the finished works,so this kind of wielding of a
pliable or malleable matter thatshe describes as a material
that can and will take its ownform.
So the first notable body ofwork that she made was in the
(10:17):
late 1960s and it's the firsttime that she's used one of
these sort of signature, viscousmaterials.
She made a number of reliefs,often in a kind of a long
totemic form mounted on the wall, and these are basically a sort
of a masonite board as a meansof support, with layers of
(10:41):
molten beeswax with various sortof pigments embedded within
them, layered on top, and thiscombination of materials would
sort of harden into variousridges and furrows and make a
kind of a topography of surfacein a spectrum of largely pastel
hues, after having shaped thissurface with a blowtorch.
(11:06):
So of course it's anunconventional approach.
Also, you know, replacing apaintbrush essentially with an
industrial tool.
So you get these skin likelayers of material which have a
very kind of, you know, a very,very dramatic surface,
especially when you see all thekind of colours marbling and
(11:27):
melting together.
And this was a precursor to thebody of work that I suppose
most quickly and emphaticallymade her reputation.
And this is, this was a groupof works called.
This was a group of workscalled, or maybe subsequently
coined, as the Pores and as ayoung artist in the turn of the
(12:12):
60s to the 70s, this really wasthe floor.
You know, this is a very sort ofperformative thing as well, of
course.
But what she's doing is she is,you know, she's taking work off
the stretcher.
She's taking work off thestretcher, she's taking work off
the wall, she's taking away thepaintbrush, the palette knife.
You know this is the material,is also the subject, and it's
(12:35):
then poured directly onto thefloor where it basically flows
together with the other coloredpuddles that she has previously
poured, with the other coloredpuddles that she has previously
poured, and then they're movingand then just sort of freezing
in form together when the motionstops.
So this is, you know, a veryparticular attitude.
(12:58):
You know, and key to this ideais that, again, the process of
making dictates the shape of thecompleted work.
The shape is something thathappens when the motion stops
and then the matter has hardenedinto its final form.
But she should still considerthis the act of a painter, even
(13:20):
though it's now existing inthree dimensions, she stated
about this work.
She said I wasn't breaking awayfrom painting, but trying to
redefine what it was.
If you wish to look up a coupleof examples, there's a work
called Blatt at the Whitney, orContraband at the MoMA, and both
of these are very typicalexamples, both of which consist
(13:41):
of sort of day glow swirls offrozen polyurethane, retaining a
look of barely arrested motion,with all the colors swirled and
gelled together into a kind of,you know, psychedelic blob on
the floor.
Now, this was, you know, asignificant breakthrough that
garnered her a lot of criticalattention and made her
(14:04):
reputation, and subsequent tothis she wanted to try and
explore what she could furtherdo with this idea.
So she started building upthese kind of armatures with
chicken wire.
She would bend and shape thechicken wire into a shape, often
in a right angle, in a corner,where two walls would meet, and
(14:26):
then she would take the samekind of viscous polyurethane and
she would pour it onto thisframe so it would drip down and
it would start to thicken andfreeze, and then she would take
other colors which she wouldthen pour over the top.
So you have this layering ofmatter and these blob-like forms
that would evolve from theaction, and then it would set in
(14:50):
the various strata that thesedifferent colored latexes were
applied.
So that was a very keydevelopment too.
That also developed the, the,the sort of very specific
methodology of making that shewas becoming known for, um, and
(15:11):
thereafter she has experimentedwith lots of other kinds of
materials.
This, this notion of using thewire mesh, has become key to her
practice.
Now since mid seventies so for50 years now she has shaped and
pinched and pleated Um.
Sometimes she has made thesesort of silvered kind of uh
(15:32):
strips or coils that that arethen twisted and knotted.
Um, some of these were coveredin um cotton or handmade paper
is another material that she'sused.
Plaster is another thing thatshe's used, and all of these
works have various expressionsof folding, pinching, pleating,
(15:54):
pulling, knotting, and all ofwhich show various sort of
physical interventions frozen inthe final form of the artwork.
Throughout the 70s, many ofthese works were painted in
different ways.
Um, she was quite interested inthe idea of creating a, a sort
(16:14):
of a seductive finish to thesurface, but also in this idea
of a sort of a high low attitude, um, very high, high minded
idea about form and the creationof form, and then and then a
very lowbrow attitude towardsthe decoration of the surface,
the, this sort of even kitsch um, whereby this sort of the pure
(16:36):
abstraction of of the form ismarred with these rather jarring
materials like the sparkle andthe glitter and the rather um
dissonant colors that are, thenthat are painted on the surface
thank you, nick.
Jeppe Curth (16:49):
Um, it seems that her visual language is a very
physical one, based on movement,as you also just explained.
Um, this was always a very maleor even macho uh idea about
making um, ever since I, I guess, the abstract expressionists.
So how did this approach tomaking works fit into the
(17:12):
feminist ideas of the early1970s?
Nicholas Robinson (17:16):
Well, I think she was.
You know, she's considered akey feminist artist of the
period and we've talked aboutsome of her peers in some other
episodes and I think that in twokey ways she has really
explored the role of a womanartist in the context of the
(17:37):
kinds of art that people make,but also in the context of the
very specific dynamics of theart world that have been
prevalent for a long time.
So not only, not only does thesome of the materiality that
we've talked about haveconnotations of low, low brow,
even sort of feminine craftprojects.
The one thing that has has verystridently um asserted her, her
(18:01):
attitude in this, in this sortof um topic, were were her, her
photography and video works, um,so she, she, she.
So she deals a lot with herinterest in gendered stereotypes
.
In some of her videos from theearly 70s there's a work called
Female Sensibility and anotherone called Now, and these play
(18:23):
very freely with the idea ofinstruction, submission and
various ideas about the role ofthe woman or the woman artist,
which of course, as we'vementioned, is at the height now
of this feminist movement.
But more provocative than thesevideos were her photographic
works.
She made some incredible stillphotographs, black and white
(18:46):
photographs that have becomealmost the biggest part of her,
her legend, if you will, and,and, and.
The first of these that I guess, uh or not the first, but the
first truly noteworthy one, umwas an image that she staged of
herself, um, as a, as a sort ofa you know, I don't know if
(19:08):
there's an, a sort of a rockstar attitude, a movie star
attitude, but it's her wearingvery masculine clothes, short
hair, sort of slicked back,wearing, you know, aviator
shades and leaning up against aPorsche.
So there's a very specificattitude, and these are images
that she would use, incidentally, for um gallery announcements.
(19:29):
So, rather than having imagesof her work, she would instead
have an image of her where her,her kind of attitudinal posture
was part of the way that she, uh, promoted herself or asserted
herself.
But the, but, the, the, the,the main one of these images,
that that, that that she made,that she's become extreme, that
(19:50):
she became extremely famous forand has subsequently become very
tired of talking about.
She called these images,incidentally, she called them
sexual mockeries, and the basicpremise of them was to satirize
this sort of art star system,the way and the way artists, you
know, use themselves and theirpersona to sell their work.
(20:11):
So so I guess there's a certaineven, I guess it's something
that that today we would beconscious of, um, as as, as uh,
an idea around branding.
But, of course, this kind ofway of of presenting oneself for
the purposes of controlling theway one is perceived is is not
a new idea.
(20:32):
So this, this, to return to this, this sort of seminal
photograph that she made in inin 1974, she took a
self-portrait of herself naked,holding a dildo against her own
crotch as if it were her ownpenis, wearing the same type of
aviator sunglasses.
So she is, you know, I mean,she's like, standing very, like,
(20:55):
assertively very, you know, Imean, like a porn star,
essentially.
And so, you know, there was abig, a big sort of controversy
about this, understandably, but,but but what I think people
don't know is't know is thatthey just, you know, they look
at the image in isolation andthey don't know what it was made
for.
This originally was an imagethat she made of herself in
(21:19):
order to accompany either aninterview or a review in
Artforum about her work, which,of course, the work itself would
have looked very different tothis portrait of her.
But the editor of the magazineat this time was extremely
resistant to publishing thisphotograph.
He he found it, you know, notrelevant to the work itself.
He found it to be kind ofcombative and uh and too, too,
(21:45):
too racy and controversial.
So what she did instead, inorder to basically guarantee
that this image was publishedand disseminated, she actually
paid for it to be used as anadvertisement in the same
magazine.
So she was very clear thatthere was no way that this image
would get buried and that shewould find a way, a determined
(22:08):
way, to ensure that it was shownpublicly.
So this of course is is, youknow, an idea of her as a, as a
personality, um, and and and andyou know, of course it has a
certain kind of mythology abouther confidence, about her
posturing, um, and this is alsopart of what has fed into the.
(22:31):
You know the idea of her as a,as a tremendously fearless and
progressive figure.
But you know, there's actuallyanother, another um kind of
interesting thing, that thatthat took place in in the early
days of her working life, thatalso speaks to this idea of that
took place in the early days ofher working life.
That also speaks to this ideaof you know, her relationship to
(23:01):
the gender politics of the artworld, um, her consciousness of
you know how an artist isdepicted and and how a male,
life magazine, which sought tocapture her in mid-paw, you know
, lunging forward as she slingsthe pigmented latex straight
from the can.
(23:22):
And this footage is veryinteresting because the use of
gravity in her body, in thisaction, it very strongly invoked
, uh, the process of JacksonPollock, and this uh is, is, is
not just a um, a, a kind of um,a relational thing in terms of
the method of making.
(23:43):
It's also a relational thing interms of the fact that this
process was recorded in this way, because one of the one of the
key things in the mythology ofJackson Pollock was the fact
that in 1970, pollock was filmeddoing his famed drip drip
painting technique by aphotographer called Hans Namuth.
(24:04):
And what Namuth did was heactually laid down a piece of
glass and he filmed underneaththe glass so that you could see
the glass functioning in lieu ofthe canvas that he would
normally paint on, and Pollockwould stand above and would
flick and drip and pour thepaint as if he were, you know,
(24:25):
setting about making a painting.
But because the camera wasunderneath the glass, it
actually was able to observethis evolution of a painting, um
, in action.
And this is, you know, this isa a sort of a historic moment in
, in, in, in media, in, in theart world, um, and this is a
(24:45):
thing that influenced, you know,process-based artists, because
they could see very clearly,witness very clearly, how a
figure like Pollock was goingabout using his materials.
But I think that the biggestlesson for Benglis was the fact
that, you know, she was able toemulate the very kind of
swaggering attitude that veryclearly comes across in the
(25:10):
Pollock films.
Jeppe Curth (25:18):
Okay, Nick, let's talk a bit about her market.
What kind of career has sheenjoyed?
It seems that she has been verywell regarded for most of her
career.
Nicholas Robinson (25:30):
She is a very significant figure and at no
point in her career as an artisthas she been without attention
or without the ability toexhibit or expose her work.
She, you know, she, madevarious evolutions of her ideas
around sculpture and paintingthroughout the 70s and 80s.
(25:52):
In fact, there's a body of workthat we have not talked about
yet.
At the end of the 1970s andthroughout the 1980s, she
started making works that wererelated to the folded the, the
folded works, um from the midseventies, Um, but these started
to.
(26:12):
They also related to the, the,the, the sort of built up um,
totemic polyurethane works.
These also were built up withchicken wire and she would fold
and pinch and pleat these, alsoknotting them, and then, and
then she would, you know, pullthe forms in in various
directions.
So there was this sort of senseof uh energy that was contained
(26:34):
, uh, in the middle of the work.
And then there was this kind ofsense of energy, uh, radiating
out in in various directions.
Um, she, she actually justdescribed them by saying a knot
can be an implosion or thebeginning of an explosion of
energy.
And these, these metallic works, she would sometimes that they
have, they had plaster on them,um, but she also uh utilized the
(26:58):
kind of vaporized metallicspray where she would make the
form in chicken wire and thenshe would spray so that this
paint or this, this, thismetallic substance, this liquid
metallic substance, would thencoat the armature that she had
formed and then so you wouldhave a.
You would have a surface umwithout the holes, and then it
would be sort of a littlepolished or burnished in places,
(27:20):
just to, you know, createdifferent um effects on the
surface Um, so so, so, so.
So this is a, is a body of workthat she there's probably
almost she's most known fortoday, because it's, it's a,
it's a, it's a body of work thatshe has pursued with various
variations on a theme now for along time.
(27:41):
But her, her career uh beganwith these wax works and her
reputation, even institutionallyalready, was formed when she
started making the paws.
In fact, most of these paws arein institutions because a lot
of them were in fact made forinstitutions.
There's also a lot of work fromthe 60s and 70s coming out of
(28:08):
this sort of post-minimal andconceptual approach to art.
You have things calledhappenings, and of course this
is also the beginning of ofperformance art as well.
So so this was very, a verykind of voguish way to make art,
the fact that it had thisperformative element.
So she was invited by museums upand down the USA to go and
(28:30):
perform these works for theprice of the materials and the
cost of a ticket.
She would go and people wouldcome and gather and she would,
you know, fling the paint or thepolyurethane directly from the
can and form these works.
So you know, people werepresent witnessing the works
being created and then, whenthis motion was frozen, there
(28:51):
was a finished artwork as aresult that ultimately would be
absorbed into the collection ofwhatever institution had paid
for her expenses.
But subsequent to that, she hashad multiple solo shows in
every year of her working life,Um.
So I think even since 1969, um55 years, she has, um, she has
(29:19):
exhibited somewhere in the world, um, with a solo show of her
exhibition.
And if you look at her list ofinstitutional collectors or the
museums in which her work ispart of a permanent collection,
I mean the list is in thehundreds.
I mean there's literally nomuseum of repute anywhere in the
(29:40):
world that does not have workby Linda Benglis.
Jeppe Curth (29:43):
Thanks, Nick.
So let's focus a little bitabout the primary market.
Which galleries arerepresenting Linda and what is
her prices?
Nicholas Robinson (29:53):
Well, her prices vary because there's
still quite a variety in scaleand materiality around her work.
So there's a show not too manyyears ago at Hufkins in Brussels
, uh, huffman's in in inBrussels.
Now there were some of these uh, chicken wire armature works
with a sort of a handmade paperdraped around the frame, around
(30:15):
the form, and painted, and therewas also monumental bronze
works which are very typical ofworks that she's exhibited um in
the recent past with pacegallery.
Now, the uh, the prices for thepaperworks they're not super
expensive, but the prices forthe very big bronzes, I mean,
(30:36):
are in the high hundreds ofthousands of dollars because
these are, you know, massive,expensively produced, lost wax
bronze casts that are, you know,very large and unwieldy and
monumental in form Um.
So of course she's able to sortof leverage her market and
reputational potency in order tobe able to make these very
(30:57):
ambitious grand uh gestures, uhin sculptural form Um.
But she has.
She has shown since the early1970s with Paula Cooper um uh, a
gallery with whom she has along standing and I think I'm
correct in saying pretty muchuninterrupted relationship.
(31:18):
But she, you know, she was, Imean, I'm sure that she's been
successful by pretty much anyreasonable metric for the most
of her working life, but, but,but I think for a long time she
wasn't really a, you know,considered a star Um, but this
began to change, perhaps 20years ago, maybe she started
(31:38):
showing um with Chime and Read,which was a very powerful
gallery at the time.
Also, in terms of revivinginterest, uh, in important
historical figures that perhapswere a little bit underrated.
They showed the work of, uh,louise Bourgeois, they showed
the work of Louise Fishman, um,and, you know, really committed
(31:59):
that, joan Mitchell.
So they showed they committedto the work of really great
women artists who had perhapsnot been quite so well regarded
as their work had deserved forthem to be.
So Chyman Reed did a great joband there was a director, a
(32:19):
partner of Chyman Reed, adamSheffer is his name.
He left excuse me, he leftimand reed and went to work at
pace and he took linda with him.
He was the, the chairman of theart dealers association for
some years.
So he was a prominent figure inthe industry in new york and
she's been able to to to reallyhave the attention of powerful
(32:41):
market making figures in theindustry, who, who, you know,
who really got got behind herwork.
Jeppe Curth (32:47):
Thank you, nick.
Okay, so she's represented byPace, one of the four maker
galleries in the world Are there?
You mentioned Paula Cooper.
You mentioned Hufkins.
Is there any other galleries?
Because it's still a verygrowing market, right?
Nicholas Robinson (33:01):
Yes, I mean there are other other smaller
galleries around the world thatshe has a relationship with.
I I confess I don't know whatthey all are.
I know that she shows workswith um uh thomas brambia in
italy.
I know that she shows workswith uh morton alskarl here in
copenhagen, um and and I'm surethat there are probably many
other places in paris, zurich orBerlin or wherever that have
(33:27):
arranged to have exhibitions ofher work, if not to represent
her per se.
Jeppe Curth (33:33):
Okay, thanks, Nick.
Let's talk about her secondarymarket.
Her auction record was in 2022,a bit over a million dollars
for work, yeah a million and 71,I think.
Correct bit over a milliondollars for work.
Yeah, a million and 71, I think.
Uh, correct, yeah, um, what canyou tell?
Nicholas Robinson (33:51):
us about her secondary market and how has it
evolved?
Well, it's, it's interesting,her secondary market, and, of
course, this is the, always thebarometer for significant um,
historic artists to understandthe, their market profile and
the.
You know the, the, the variouscircumstances in context that
that make them an exciting and agood idea, um, to acquire works
(34:15):
by from a, you know, from a,from an acquisition perspective.
I mean, the works are amazing,they're spectacular, but of
course, as we've spoken about atlength, when, when we buy
things, we, we, we do so notonly because we, you know, feel
the incredible potency of thework, passion, we're very
passionate about it, but we also, we also like to exercise, you
(34:39):
know, a very rational brain aswell, um, but you know, we can't
buy everything.
So we like to make smartchoices, but the, but the work
that you cite is one of thesemetallic pleated works from the
eighties, and these are theworks that characteristically
always achieve the highestprices.
So that was a million and 70.
(35:01):
And then the next price afterthat was in the 800s 850, I
think, and then a 600 and change, and then quite a number in the
four to 500, in the half halfmillion dollar range.
So, so, so almost all of thetop prices are for these types
of works, which, of course,shows us that this is the most
(35:24):
desirable category of her workfor collectors.
It's the one that you see inimportant historic surveys, it's
the one you see in all the, thetype you see in all the
promotional materials forimportant museum exhibitions, et
cetera, et cetera.
So, um, so, so, if, if, if we,if we look solely at the data,
(35:45):
we can see that the top 20results for her at auction are
all achieved in the last fiveyears, even with the majority of
those top 20 results happeningsince 2023.
So in 2010, the highest pricewas 167,000.
(36:10):
That was the record price forBenglis in 2010.
And in 2020, which, of course,a decade later and only five
years ago, highest price for herwork at auction and this, of
course, is not taking intoconsideration sales that have
been conducted privately, wherewe are not privy to the prices
achieved but the highest pricein 2020 was 212,000.
(36:32):
So that's not a huge difference.
Over a decade 167K to 212K Um.
And from 2010 to 2021, and from2010 to 2021, the highest price
was still only 245,000.
So in the last four years, therecord price has gone from
(36:57):
245,000 to almost 1.1 million.
So that, of course, shows usthat her market, in this sense
and specifically for these kindsof works, has momentum.
Now what we usually extrapolatefrom that is you know, if the
opportunity to buy somethingfrom this body of work for a
good price would arise, thenthat would be, you know,
generally speaking, a no-brainertype thing to do.
(37:18):
But if you see, you know topexamples of other bodies of work
that she has performedespecially or created especially
from other historic bodies ofwork, be it the earlier totemic
works, beeswax works, the foldedworks, the knotted works,
(37:41):
anything from those body ofworks would be because these are
also lesser priced than this,you know, than the metallic
works that I've mentioned.
So yeah, she has a verydramatically changing secondary
market.
That has accelerated in thelast, well, in the last two
years especially, but we canalso say over the last four to
(38:01):
five years.
Jeppe Curth (38:03):
Even though it's works that are quite expensive
for most of us, and we have beenbuying and recommending linda
bingley's for quite some timenow could you maybe put some
words on why we still believeit's a bit underappreciated by
the market, why we still believethere's a case there to be made
?
Nicholas Robinson (38:19):
well, I think , I think, when you've been
looking at and buying art for along time, you, you, you know,
you, you have an instinct foryou know names that are talked
about that are, you know,they're not just in the history
books, their, their names are,are the headings of chapters in
history books.
And I think, I think LindaBenglis, in this kind of pivot
(38:39):
from painting to sculpture andthis pivot from minimalism to to
sort of post minimalistconceptual work and performance
work, this kind of hybriditybetween painting and sculpture,
I mean she, she is, her, her,you know incredible sensitivity
and satirization of genderpolitics, categorization of
(39:08):
gender politics, I mean she, shereally just ticks every
conceivable box for somebodywho's like alertness and
prescience and sort of agilityas a thinker and a maker is is
very striking.
You know she, she's, she hasbroad and deep appeal.
Her works are beautiful.
So you know they're, they'reoften, often, you know, often,
with interesting historicartists, if the work that they
make is very, you know, it'svery weird, or it's very
(39:31):
aesthetically challenging orit's very unwieldy and difficult
to accommodate, then obviouslyyou can have challenges in, you
know, in people wanting toacquire those things.
That's not the case for forbenglis's sculptures.
They are exquisite objects thatyou know can, can be readily
put into any, any environment toenjoy.
(39:52):
So this, this sort of broad anddeep appeal is, is key.
She, you know, has the momentum, the market momentum that we've
spoken about.
Um, she's, you know, she's ashe's a trailblazer and a
(40:13):
torchbearer, but she has, youknow, an important legacy of
both practice and process andgender politics.
Um, so she's inserted herselfpowerfully into all of these
dialogues.
Art forum ad that I referenced,has been key to this, which,
incidentally, the New York TimesI think in 2019, cited as one
of the 25 works of art that hasdefined the contemporary age.
Now, if you think about all theartists and all the artworks
(40:36):
that have been made, yes, thisarticle had to be written by
someone with their ownsubjective opinion, but that's a
significant accolade,considering it as one of the 25
works of art that has definedthe contemporary era.
So, so, so, so.
So I think of Benglis as, asstill, as a sort of a sleeper,
because to me she's an arthistory star and perhaps the
(40:57):
market hasn't quite yetrecognized it, but, but, but.
What's more intriguing to me isthat is that an artist is able
to be simultaneously an arthistory star and yet also still
somehow a real cult figure and areal artist's artist as well.
Jeppe Curth (41:13):
You are listening to the Collector's Edge, brought
to you by Nordic Art Partners.
As professional art dealers andadvisors, we help our clients
build meaningful, valuablecollections through experience,
insight, knowledge and accesswith confidence.
Whether you are looking tobuild a valuable in a collection
(41:34):
, seek expert guidance orestablish art as a diversified
assets, we are here.
To help.
To learn more, you can go toour website
nordicaartpartnerscom.
So here in the end, nick, for acollector new to Linda Benley's
(41:54):
works, what should they lookfor when considering an
acquisition?
Where should they look for toget more information?
Nicholas Robinson (42:00):
Well, I think I mean, there's no harm to
looking and learning.
I would advocate that anyone dothat for any artists they're
interested in.
And it's not difficult to findinformation on Linda Benglis's
work.
One only has to jump online andyou can find great information
about her work on importantmuseum websites like MoMA's
(42:23):
website.
Pace Gallery of a has a greatwebsite, as you would expect.
Hufkins Um, but also there'ssome very interesting uh
interviews with her that you canfind online.
You can put her name intoYouTube and you can hear her
talk about her work and herexperiences in her own words, um
, and then you know.
Then, of course, and herexperiences in her own words,
(42:43):
and then you know.
Then, of course, you know, it'snot that difficult to look into
.
You know, acquiring work.
I mean, there's an easy way tosearch for things.
Jeppe Curth (42:58):
Yeah, that's it Good, thank you.
Anything else to add here inthe end?
Nicholas Robinson (43:04):
No, I don't think so.
I mean, I think we've prettymuch covered all there is to
cover, certainly for thepurposes of what we're here to
talk about.
So yeah, thank you for today.
Jeppe Curth (43:17):
Yeah, thank you very much.
That was it for this episode ofthe Collector's Edge.
If you are looking for expertinsights, what to make informed
decision and would like advicefrom independent advisors, send
us an email or maybe just callus.
You can find all the info onour website,
nordicartpartnerscom.
(43:38):
Thank you for listening and wehope to have you back for
another episode.
Bye.
Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge for Nordic
Art Partners.
In today's episode, we'llexplore the career of Linda
Benglis, a groundbreakingAmerican sculptor known for her
radical experimentation withmaterials and form.
Joining me, as always, is ourart expert, Nicholas Robinson,
and I'm your host, Jeppe Curth.
Let's get started.
Nicholas Robinson (00:20):
It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million
Selling here at Christie's.
$400 million is the bid and thepiece is sold.
We've all heard about it.
Sometimes it's front-page newsImportant works of art are being
sold for incredible sums ofmoney.
But can you get involved andbecome a part of the exclusive
(00:42):
club yourself, and how do youget started while avoiding
buying the wrong things?
That's exactly what thispodcast is about.
This is the Collector's Edgefrom Nordic Art Partners, a
podcast for those of youinterested in the mechanics of
the art industry, want adviceabout putting money into art, or
(01:02):
simply want to buy somethingfor your walls, to beautify your
surroundings.
Whatever your objectives, it ispossible to put money into art
wisely, to be considered,thoughtful and well-informed in
your choices and actions.
Welcome to the art ofcollecting with an eye for
curated beauty and practicalvalue.
Jeppe Curth (01:25):
Hi Nick.
Nicholas Robinson (01:26):
Hi Jeppe, how are you doing?
Very well.
Jeppe Curth (01:29):
How are you today?
I'm good, thank you, becausetoday we're going to talk about
Linda Benglis.
Yes, we are the great LindaBenglis.
Yes, indeed.
So, as usual, can you give us abit of background on her early
days and how old she is andwhere she's from?
Nicholas Robinson (01:47):
Of course, certainly.
She was born in 1941 in LakeCharles in Louisiana, making her
84 years old.
Her father, I believe, was inbusiness and she had a pretty
comfortable middle classchildhood, from what I can
understand.
But key to her childhood washer, or one of the keys to her
(02:10):
childhood, or her formativeyears, was her relationship with
her grandmother.
Her family is of Greekextraction and her grandmother
was widowed at a young age.
Inheriting property whichenabled her as a not a super
young child, but maybe as ayoung teenager, enabled her to
travel in Greece with her, whichbecame very important for her
(02:34):
to experience another culture,and she was also exposed to the
classical antiquity all aroundtraveling amongst the islands.
So this is something that sheremembers as a very sort of
formative influence on herunderstanding of the world.
She studied at McNeice StateUniversity in her hometown of
(02:56):
Lake Charles and then went to doa BFA in 1964 at Tulane where
she studied ceramics andpainting, and her attitude
towards painting was verytypical of artists of the day in
that they were very inspired,influenced by the dominant idiom
of the post-war period, thatbeing abstract expressionist
(03:18):
painting.
So she very much admired thisstyle of an older generation of
artists, but she was also verycurious how she could not only
adopt this but adapt it todevelop it or push it in further
directions.
So, following her graduation in1964, she spent a short time
(03:40):
teaching young children.
She spent a short time teachingyoung children and thereafter
she moved to New York where shevery quickly met many of the
leading artists of the day,which would have been a very
diverse and influential,powerful group of artists,
numbering among them Warhol,judd Sol, lewitt, eva Hess,
(04:02):
barnett, newman, all of whom shedeveloped various relationships
with.
Also, there are someinteresting anecdotes about her
very opinionated attitudetowards work by Dan Flavin,
robert Ryman.
(04:26):
So she's already, even as ayoung artist, moving to New York
for the first time.
She is fearlessly embracing theartists that formed the
avant-garde community there.
Uh, as a young, uh sort ofprofessional person or or
whatever, trying to make her wayin the world, she, she actually
took a job as an assistant atthe Bicut gallery, working for
Klaus Curtis.
Um, we've covered theimportance of his gallery in
(04:46):
another, in another episodewhere we were discussing the
career of Joan Snyder.
In fact, um, subsequently, sheI'm not sure if she worked at
the Paula Cooper gallery or shehad her first, um sort of
representational relationshipwith them.
But this was also a importantstep for her to be involved with
this, which at this time was asort of nascent gallery as well.
(05:10):
So that's her early biography,I guess you could say.
Jeppe Curth (05:16):
Okay, Thank you, Nick.
So tell us about her work.
What makes it distinctive andhow did she achieve this?
Maybe her first breakthroughand recognition.
Nicholas Robinson (05:27):
Well, she.
So we've given a littlebackground about the various
artists of this period.
You have all of these, you know, slightly competing aesthetics,
this sort of splintering ofexpression going in various
directions.
You've got, you know, you'vestill got this sort of powerful
(05:51):
abstract expressionisttrajectory that flows through
painting.
You've got pop art, which, ofcourse, began at the beginning
of the 1960s, and then you havevarious sort of minimalist
trends as well, as epitomizedmostly by Donald Judd, carl
(06:11):
Andre, sol LeWitt, dan Flavin aswell, of course, and also a man
that she was in a relationshipwith, robert Morris.
So she began her career in themidst of this post-minimal
generation.
Um, some of the work was ofthis generation was much more
focused on, um, very sort ofhigh-minded ideas, uh,
(06:33):
conceptual ideas about what anartwork could be and should be,
and some of it was much morerooted in, uh, the materiality
and the process and thephysicality.
So she was focused on onsculpture, but she was focused
on sculpture, uh, essentiallywith the attitude of a painter.
Um, she actually consideredherself a painter, uh,
(06:56):
interested in painterlymaterials and where this idea of
the gesture could take her.
Um, and what she did is thatshe very clearly, as a pioneer,
in this way she conflated bothpainting and sculpture, um, so
that the examples of paintingand the techniques and
(07:18):
methodologies and even sort ofthe materials of painting were
expanded into three dimensionsand then sort of frozen in space
.
So it was a way of freezing thegesture, if you like.
And common to all of her bodiesof work is a purely abstract
form, many of which are verytypically inspired by natural or
(07:41):
organic matter.
Sometimes they have a verybiomorphic feeling, but there's
always a sense of movement inthem, a sense of movement being
arrested, a lot of sinuous formsthat are frozen in their moment
of creation.
And then the other thing thatshe became very sort of noted
(08:03):
for was an experimentation withmaterials.
She was always very driven by ahighly innovative approach to
both the technical and the allkinds of materials not very
commonly associated with fineart media, such as beeswax,
(08:32):
latex, polyurethane, and thensurface materials that were not
really associated with fine artat all Glitter, sparkles,
luminous paint which were oftenused to sort of, I suppose, add
a certain decoration to theforms that she had created.
Jeppe Curth (08:52):
Okay, nick.
So she came to prominence inthe 1960s among a generation of
artists who took variousexamples from abstract
expressionism and minimalism.
And try to develop thislanguage right.
Nicholas Robinson (09:06):
Yes, absolutely.
She definitely was absorbingall of these examples and kind
of tried to encompass manydifferent ways of considering
them in her bodies of work.
I mean, the first body of workshe first became noted for was
(09:28):
was very much developing this,this theme of the gesture.
Um, and one of the things thatshe's gone on to do in in many
of her bodies of work is is iskind of record the behavior of a
fluid substance in action, orsome kind of motion in action
that is then frozen and arrestedin a final form.
She, alongside peers of herslike Eva Hess or Richard Serra,
(09:53):
she's very key in that sheallowed, often she allowed the
process of making to dictate theshape of the finished works,
the shape of the finished works,so this kind of wielding of a
pliable or malleable matter thatshe describes as a material
that can and will take its ownform.
So the first notable body ofwork that she made was in the
(10:17):
late 1960s and it's the firsttime that she's used one of
these sort of signature, viscousmaterials.
She made a number of reliefs,often in a kind of a long
totemic form mounted on the wall, and these are basically a sort
of a masonite board as a meansof support, with layers of
(10:41):
molten beeswax with various sortof pigments embedded within
them, layered on top, and thiscombination of materials would
sort of harden into variousridges and furrows and make a
kind of a topography of surfacein a spectrum of largely pastel
hues, after having shaped thissurface with a blowtorch.
(11:06):
So of course it's anunconventional approach.
Also, you know, replacing apaintbrush essentially with an
industrial tool.
So you get these skin likelayers of material which have a
very kind of, you know, a very,very dramatic surface,
especially when you see all thekind of colours marbling and
(11:27):
melting together.
And this was a precursor to thebody of work that I suppose
most quickly and emphaticallymade her reputation.
And this is, this was a groupof works called.
This was a group of workscalled, or maybe subsequently
coined, as the Pores and as ayoung artist in the turn of the
(12:12):
60s to the 70s, this really wasthe floor.
You know, this is a very sort ofperformative thing as well, of
course.
But what she's doing is she is,you know, she's taking work off
the stretcher.
She's taking work off thestretcher, she's taking work off
the wall, she's taking away thepaintbrush, the palette knife.
You know this is the material,is also the subject, and it's
(12:35):
then poured directly onto thefloor where it basically flows
together with the other coloredpuddles that she has previously
poured, with the other coloredpuddles that she has previously
poured, and then they're movingand then just sort of freezing
in form together when the motionstops.
So this is, you know, a veryparticular attitude.
(12:58):
You know, and key to this ideais that, again, the process of
making dictates the shape of thecompleted work.
The shape is something thathappens when the motion stops
and then the matter has hardenedinto its final form.
But she should still considerthis the act of a painter, even
(13:20):
though it's now existing inthree dimensions, she stated
about this work.
She said I wasn't breaking awayfrom painting, but trying to
redefine what it was.
If you wish to look up a coupleof examples, there's a work
called Blatt at the Whitney, orContraband at the MoMA, and both
of these are very typicalexamples, both of which consist
(13:41):
of sort of day glow swirls offrozen polyurethane, retaining a
look of barely arrested motion,with all the colors swirled and
gelled together into a kind of,you know, psychedelic blob on
the floor.
Now, this was, you know, asignificant breakthrough that
garnered her a lot of criticalattention and made her
(14:04):
reputation, and subsequent tothis she wanted to try and
explore what she could furtherdo with this idea.
So she started building upthese kind of armatures with
chicken wire.
She would bend and shape thechicken wire into a shape, often
in a right angle, in a corner,where two walls would meet, and
(14:26):
then she would take the samekind of viscous polyurethane and
she would pour it onto thisframe so it would drip down and
it would start to thicken andfreeze, and then she would take
other colors which she wouldthen pour over the top.
So you have this layering ofmatter and these blob-like forms
that would evolve from theaction, and then it would set in
(14:50):
the various strata that thesedifferent colored latexes were
applied.
So that was a very keydevelopment too.
That also developed the, the,the sort of very specific
methodology of making that shewas becoming known for, um, and
(15:11):
thereafter she has experimentedwith lots of other kinds of
materials.
This, this notion of using thewire mesh, has become key to her
practice.
Now since mid seventies so for50 years now she has shaped and
pinched and pleated Um.
Sometimes she has made thesesort of silvered kind of uh
(15:32):
strips or coils that that arethen twisted and knotted.
Um, some of these were coveredin um cotton or handmade paper
is another material that she'sused.
Plaster is another thing thatshe's used, and all of these
works have various expressionsof folding, pinching, pleating,
(15:54):
pulling, knotting, and all ofwhich show various sort of
physical interventions frozen inthe final form of the artwork.
Throughout the 70s, many ofthese works were painted in
different ways.
Um, she was quite interested inthe idea of creating a, a sort
(16:14):
of a seductive finish to thesurface, but also in this idea
of a sort of a high low attitude, um, very high, high minded
idea about form and the creationof form, and then and then a
very lowbrow attitude towardsthe decoration of the surface,
the, this sort of even kitsch um, whereby this sort of the pure
(16:36):
abstraction of of the form ismarred with these rather jarring
materials like the sparkle andthe glitter and the rather um
dissonant colors that are, thenthat are painted on the surface
thank you, nick.
Jeppe Curth (16:49):
Um, it seems that her visual language is a very
physical one, based on movement,as you also just explained.
Um, this was always a very maleor even macho uh idea about
making um, ever since I, I guess, the abstract expressionists.
So how did this approach tomaking works fit into the
(17:12):
feminist ideas of the early1970s?
Nicholas Robinson (17:16):
Well, I think she was.
You know, she's considered akey feminist artist of the
period and we've talked aboutsome of her peers in some other
episodes and I think that in twokey ways she has really
explored the role of a womanartist in the context of the
(17:37):
kinds of art that people make,but also in the context of the
very specific dynamics of theart world that have been
prevalent for a long time.
So not only, not only does thesome of the materiality that
we've talked about haveconnotations of low, low brow,
even sort of feminine craftprojects.
The one thing that has has verystridently um asserted her, her
(18:01):
attitude in this, in this sortof um topic, were were her, her
photography and video works, um,so she, she, she.
So she deals a lot with herinterest in gendered stereotypes
.
In some of her videos from theearly 70s there's a work called
Female Sensibility and anotherone called Now, and these play
(18:23):
very freely with the idea ofinstruction, submission and
various ideas about the role ofthe woman or the woman artist,
which of course, as we'vementioned, is at the height now
of this feminist movement.
But more provocative than thesevideos were her photographic
works.
She made some incredible stillphotographs, black and white
(18:46):
photographs that have becomealmost the biggest part of her,
her legend, if you will, and,and, and.
The first of these that I guess, uh or not the first, but the
first truly noteworthy one, umwas an image that she staged of
herself, um, as a, as a sort ofa you know, I don't know if
(19:08):
there's an, a sort of a rockstar attitude, a movie star
attitude, but it's her wearingvery masculine clothes, short
hair, sort of slicked back,wearing, you know, aviator
shades and leaning up against aPorsche.
So there's a very specificattitude, and these are images
that she would use, incidentally, for um gallery announcements.
(19:29):
So, rather than having imagesof her work, she would instead
have an image of her where her,her kind of attitudinal posture
was part of the way that she, uh, promoted herself or asserted
herself.
But the, but, the, the, the,the main one of these images,
that that, that that she made,that she's become extreme, that
(19:50):
she became extremely famous forand has subsequently become very
tired of talking about.
She called these images,incidentally, she called them
sexual mockeries, and the basicpremise of them was to satirize
this sort of art star system,the way and the way artists, you
know, use themselves and theirpersona to sell their work.
(20:11):
So so I guess there's a certaineven, I guess it's something
that that today we would beconscious of, um, as as, as uh,
an idea around branding.
But, of course, this kind ofway of of presenting oneself for
the purposes of controlling theway one is perceived is is not
a new idea.
(20:32):
So this, this, to return to this, this sort of seminal
photograph that she made in inin 1974, she took a
self-portrait of herself naked,holding a dildo against her own
crotch as if it were her ownpenis, wearing the same type of
aviator sunglasses.
So she is, you know, I mean,she's like, standing very, like,
(20:55):
assertively very, you know, Imean, like a porn star,
essentially.
And so, you know, there was abig, a big sort of controversy
about this, understandably, but,but but what I think people
don't know is't know is thatthey just, you know, they look
at the image in isolation andthey don't know what it was made
for.
This originally was an imagethat she made of herself in
(21:19):
order to accompany either aninterview or a review in
Artforum about her work, which,of course, the work itself would
have looked very different tothis portrait of her.
But the editor of the magazineat this time was extremely
resistant to publishing thisphotograph.
He he found it, you know, notrelevant to the work itself.
He found it to be kind ofcombative and uh and too, too,
(21:45):
too racy and controversial.
So what she did instead, inorder to basically guarantee
that this image was publishedand disseminated, she actually
paid for it to be used as anadvertisement in the same
magazine.
So she was very clear thatthere was no way that this image
would get buried and that shewould find a way, a determined
(22:08):
way, to ensure that it was shownpublicly.
So this of course is is, youknow, an idea of her as a, as a
personality, um, and and and andyou know, of course it has a
certain kind of mythology abouther confidence, about her
posturing, um, and this is alsopart of what has fed into the.
(22:31):
You know the idea of her as a,as a tremendously fearless and
progressive figure.
But you know, there's actuallyanother, another um kind of
interesting thing, that thatthat took place in in the early
days of her working life, thatalso speaks to this idea of that
took place in the early days ofher working life.
That also speaks to this ideaof you know, her relationship to
(23:01):
the gender politics of the artworld, um, her consciousness of
you know how an artist isdepicted and and how a male,
life magazine, which sought tocapture her in mid-paw, you know
, lunging forward as she slingsthe pigmented latex straight
from the can.
(23:22):
And this footage is veryinteresting because the use of
gravity in her body, in thisaction, it very strongly invoked
, uh, the process of JacksonPollock, and this uh is, is, is
not just a um, a, a kind of um,a relational thing in terms of
the method of making.
(23:43):
It's also a relational thing interms of the fact that this
process was recorded in this way, because one of the one of the
key things in the mythology ofJackson Pollock was the fact
that in 1970, pollock was filmeddoing his famed drip drip
painting technique by aphotographer called Hans Namuth.
(24:04):
And what Namuth did was heactually laid down a piece of
glass and he filmed underneaththe glass so that you could see
the glass functioning in lieu ofthe canvas that he would
normally paint on, and Pollockwould stand above and would
flick and drip and pour thepaint as if he were, you know,
(24:25):
setting about making a painting.
But because the camera wasunderneath the glass, it
actually was able to observethis evolution of a painting, um
, in action.
And this is, you know, this isa a sort of a historic moment in
, in, in, in media, in, in theart world, um, and this is a
(24:45):
thing that influenced, you know,process-based artists, because
they could see very clearly,witness very clearly, how a
figure like Pollock was goingabout using his materials.
But I think that the biggestlesson for Benglis was the fact
that, you know, she was able toemulate the very kind of
swaggering attitude that veryclearly comes across in the
(25:10):
Pollock films.
Jeppe Curth (25:18):
Okay, Nick, let's talk a bit about her market.
What kind of career has sheenjoyed?
It seems that she has been verywell regarded for most of her
career.
Nicholas Robinson (25:30):
She is a very significant figure and at no
point in her career as an artisthas she been without attention
or without the ability toexhibit or expose her work.
She, you know, she, madevarious evolutions of her ideas
around sculpture and paintingthroughout the 70s and 80s.
(25:52):
In fact, there's a body of workthat we have not talked about
yet.
At the end of the 1970s andthroughout the 1980s, she
started making works that wererelated to the folded the, the
folded works, um from the midseventies, Um, but these started
to.
(26:12):
They also related to the, the,the, the sort of built up um,
totemic polyurethane works.
These also were built up withchicken wire and she would fold
and pinch and pleat these, alsoknotting them, and then, and
then she would, you know, pullthe forms in in various
directions.
So there was this sort of senseof uh energy that was contained
(26:34):
, uh, in the middle of the work.
And then there was this kind ofsense of energy, uh, radiating
out in in various directions.
Um, she, she actually justdescribed them by saying a knot
can be an implosion or thebeginning of an explosion of
energy.
And these, these metallic works, she would sometimes that they
have, they had plaster on them,um, but she also uh utilized the
(26:58):
kind of vaporized metallicspray where she would make the
form in chicken wire and thenshe would spray so that this
paint or this, this, thismetallic substance, this liquid
metallic substance, would thencoat the armature that she had
formed and then so you wouldhave a.
You would have a surface umwithout the holes, and then it
would be sort of a littlepolished or burnished in places,
(27:20):
just to, you know, createdifferent um effects on the
surface Um, so so, so, so.
So this is a, is a body of workthat she there's probably
almost she's most known fortoday, because it's, it's a,
it's a, it's a body of work thatshe has pursued with various
variations on a theme now for along time.
(27:41):
But her, her career uh beganwith these wax works and her
reputation, even institutionallyalready, was formed when she
started making the paws.
In fact, most of these paws arein institutions because a lot
of them were in fact made forinstitutions.
There's also a lot of work fromthe 60s and 70s coming out of
(28:08):
this sort of post-minimal andconceptual approach to art.
You have things calledhappenings, and of course this
is also the beginning of ofperformance art as well.
So so this was very, a verykind of voguish way to make art,
the fact that it had thisperformative element.
So she was invited by museums upand down the USA to go and
(28:30):
perform these works for theprice of the materials and the
cost of a ticket.
She would go and people wouldcome and gather and she would,
you know, fling the paint or thepolyurethane directly from the
can and form these works.
So you know, people werepresent witnessing the works
being created and then, whenthis motion was frozen, there
(28:51):
was a finished artwork as aresult that ultimately would be
absorbed into the collection ofwhatever institution had paid
for her expenses.
But subsequent to that, she hashad multiple solo shows in
every year of her working life,Um.
So I think even since 1969, um55 years, she has, um, she has
(29:19):
exhibited somewhere in the world, um, with a solo show of her
exhibition.
And if you look at her list ofinstitutional collectors or the
museums in which her work ispart of a permanent collection,
I mean the list is in thehundreds.
I mean there's literally nomuseum of repute anywhere in the
(29:40):
world that does not have workby Linda Benglis.
Jeppe Curth (29:43):
Thanks, Nick.
So let's focus a little bitabout the primary market.
Which galleries arerepresenting Linda and what is
her prices?
Nicholas Robinson (29:53):
Well, her prices vary because there's
still quite a variety in scaleand materiality around her work.
So there's a show not too manyyears ago at Hufkins in Brussels
, uh, huffman's in in inBrussels.
Now there were some of these uh, chicken wire armature works
with a sort of a handmade paperdraped around the frame, around
(30:15):
the form, and painted, and therewas also monumental bronze
works which are very typical ofworks that she's exhibited um in
the recent past with pacegallery.
Now, the uh, the prices for thepaperworks they're not super
expensive, but the prices forthe very big bronzes, I mean,
(30:36):
are in the high hundreds ofthousands of dollars because
these are, you know, massive,expensively produced, lost wax
bronze casts that are, you know,very large and unwieldy and
monumental in form Um.
So of course she's able to sortof leverage her market and
reputational potency in order tobe able to make these very
(30:57):
ambitious grand uh gestures, uhin sculptural form Um.
But she has.
She has shown since the early1970s with Paula Cooper um uh, a
gallery with whom she has along standing and I think I'm
correct in saying pretty muchuninterrupted relationship.
(31:18):
But she, you know, she was, Imean, I'm sure that she's been
successful by pretty much anyreasonable metric for the most
of her working life, but, but,but I think for a long time she
wasn't really a, you know,considered a star Um, but this
began to change, perhaps 20years ago, maybe she started
(31:38):
showing um with Chime and Read,which was a very powerful
gallery at the time.
Also, in terms of revivinginterest, uh, in important
historical figures that perhapswere a little bit underrated.
They showed the work of, uh,louise Bourgeois, they showed
the work of Louise Fishman, um,and, you know, really committed
(31:59):
that, joan Mitchell.
So they showed they committedto the work of really great
women artists who had perhapsnot been quite so well regarded
as their work had deserved forthem to be.
So Chyman Reed did a great joband there was a director, a
(32:19):
partner of Chyman Reed, adamSheffer is his name.
He left excuse me, he leftimand reed and went to work at
pace and he took linda with him.
He was the, the chairman of theart dealers association for
some years.
So he was a prominent figure inthe industry in new york and
she's been able to to to reallyhave the attention of powerful
(32:41):
market making figures in theindustry, who, who, you know,
who really got got behind herwork.
Jeppe Curth (32:47):
Thank you, nick.
Okay, so she's represented byPace, one of the four maker
galleries in the world Are there?
You mentioned Paula Cooper.
You mentioned Hufkins.
Is there any other galleries?
Because it's still a verygrowing market, right?
Nicholas Robinson (33:01):
Yes, I mean there are other other smaller
galleries around the world thatshe has a relationship with.
I I confess I don't know whatthey all are.
I know that she shows workswith um uh thomas brambia in
italy.
I know that she shows workswith uh morton alskarl here in
copenhagen, um and and I'm surethat there are probably many
other places in paris, zurich orBerlin or wherever that have
(33:27):
arranged to have exhibitions ofher work, if not to represent
her per se.
Jeppe Curth (33:33):
Okay, thanks, Nick.
Let's talk about her secondarymarket.
Her auction record was in 2022,a bit over a million dollars
for work, yeah a million and 71,I think.
Correct bit over a milliondollars for work.
Yeah, a million and 71, I think.
Uh, correct, yeah, um, what canyou tell?
Nicholas Robinson (33:51):
us about her secondary market and how has it
evolved?
Well, it's, it's interesting,her secondary market, and, of
course, this is the, always thebarometer for significant um,
historic artists to understandthe, their market profile and
the.
You know the, the, the variouscircumstances in context that
that make them an exciting and agood idea, um, to acquire works
(34:15):
by from a, you know, from a,from an acquisition perspective.
I mean, the works are amazing,they're spectacular, but of
course, as we've spoken about atlength, when, when we buy
things, we, we, we do so notonly because we, you know, feel
the incredible potency of thework, passion, we're very
passionate about it, but we also, we also like to exercise, you
(34:39):
know, a very rational brain aswell, um, but you know, we can't
buy everything.
So we like to make smartchoices, but the, but the work
that you cite is one of thesemetallic pleated works from the
eighties, and these are theworks that characteristically
always achieve the highestprices.
So that was a million and 70.
(35:01):
And then the next price afterthat was in the 800s 850, I
think, and then a 600 and change, and then quite a number in the
four to 500, in the half halfmillion dollar range.
So, so, so almost all of thetop prices are for these types
of works, which, of course,shows us that this is the most
(35:24):
desirable category of her workfor collectors.
It's the one that you see inimportant historic surveys, it's
the one you see in all the, thetype you see in all the
promotional materials forimportant museum exhibitions, et
cetera, et cetera.
So, um, so, so, if, if, if we,if we look solely at the data,
(35:45):
we can see that the top 20results for her at auction are
all achieved in the last fiveyears, even with the majority of
those top 20 results happeningsince 2023.
So in 2010, the highest pricewas 167,000.
(36:10):
That was the record price forBenglis in 2010.
And in 2020, which, of course,a decade later and only five
years ago, highest price for herwork at auction and this, of
course, is not taking intoconsideration sales that have
been conducted privately, wherewe are not privy to the prices
achieved but the highest pricein 2020 was 212,000.
(36:32):
So that's not a huge difference.
Over a decade 167K to 212K Um.
And from 2010 to 2021, and from2010 to 2021, the highest price
was still only 245,000.
So in the last four years, therecord price has gone from
(36:57):
245,000 to almost 1.1 million.
So that, of course, shows usthat her market, in this sense
and specifically for these kindsof works, has momentum.
Now what we usually extrapolatefrom that is you know, if the
opportunity to buy somethingfrom this body of work for a
good price would arise, thenthat would be, you know,
generally speaking, a no-brainertype thing to do.
(37:18):
But if you see, you know topexamples of other bodies of work
that she has performedespecially or created especially
from other historic bodies ofwork, be it the earlier totemic
works, beeswax works, the foldedworks, the knotted works,
(37:41):
anything from those body ofworks would be because these are
also lesser priced than this,you know, than the metallic
works that I've mentioned.
So yeah, she has a verydramatically changing secondary
market.
That has accelerated in thelast, well, in the last two
years especially, but we canalso say over the last four to
(38:01):
five years.
Jeppe Curth (38:03):
Even though it's works that are quite expensive
for most of us, and we have beenbuying and recommending linda
bingley's for quite some timenow could you maybe put some
words on why we still believeit's a bit underappreciated by
the market, why we still believethere's a case there to be made
?
Nicholas Robinson (38:19):
well, I think , I think, when you've been
looking at and buying art for along time, you, you, you know,
you, you have an instinct foryou know names that are talked
about that are, you know,they're not just in the history
books, their, their names are,are the headings of chapters in
history books.
And I think, I think LindaBenglis, in this kind of pivot
(38:39):
from painting to sculpture andthis pivot from minimalism to to
sort of post minimalistconceptual work and performance
work, this kind of hybriditybetween painting and sculpture,
I mean she, she is, her, her,you know incredible sensitivity
and satirization of genderpolitics, categorization of
(39:08):
gender politics, I mean she, shereally just ticks every
conceivable box for somebodywho's like alertness and
prescience and sort of agilityas a thinker and a maker is is
very striking.
You know she, she's, she hasbroad and deep appeal.
Her works are beautiful.
So you know they're, they'reoften, often, you know, often,
with interesting historicartists, if the work that they
make is very, you know, it'svery weird, or it's very
(39:31):
aesthetically challenging orit's very unwieldy and difficult
to accommodate, then obviouslyyou can have challenges in, you
know, in people wanting toacquire those things.
That's not the case for forbenglis's sculptures.
They are exquisite objects thatyou know can, can be readily
put into any, any environment toenjoy.
(39:52):
So this, this sort of broad anddeep appeal is, is key.
She, you know, has the momentum, the market momentum that we've
spoken about.
Um, she's, you know, she's ashe's a trailblazer and a
(40:13):
torchbearer, but she has, youknow, an important legacy of
both practice and process andgender politics.
Um, so she's inserted herselfpowerfully into all of these
dialogues.
Art forum ad that I referenced,has been key to this, which,
incidentally, the New York TimesI think in 2019, cited as one
of the 25 works of art that hasdefined the contemporary age.
Now, if you think about all theartists and all the artworks
(40:36):
that have been made, yes, thisarticle had to be written by
someone with their ownsubjective opinion, but that's a
significant accolade,considering it as one of the 25
works of art that has definedthe contemporary era.
So, so, so, so.
So I think of Benglis as, asstill, as a sort of a sleeper,
because to me she's an arthistory star and perhaps the
(40:57):
market hasn't quite yetrecognized it, but, but, but.
What's more intriguing to me isthat is that an artist is able
to be simultaneously an arthistory star and yet also still
somehow a real cult figure and areal artist's artist as well.
Jeppe Curth (41:13):
You are listening to the Collector's Edge, brought
to you by Nordic Art Partners.
As professional art dealers andadvisors, we help our clients
build meaningful, valuablecollections through experience,
insight, knowledge and accesswith confidence.
Whether you are looking tobuild a valuable in a collection
(41:34):
, seek expert guidance orestablish art as a diversified
assets, we are here.
To help.
To learn more, you can go toour website
nordicaartpartnerscom.
So here in the end, nick, for acollector new to Linda Benley's
(41:54):
works, what should they lookfor when considering an
acquisition?
Where should they look for toget more information?
Nicholas Robinson (42:00):
Well, I think I mean, there's no harm to
looking and learning.
I would advocate that anyone dothat for any artists they're
interested in.
And it's not difficult to findinformation on Linda Benglis's
work.
One only has to jump online andyou can find great information
about her work on importantmuseum websites like MoMA's
(42:23):
website.
Pace Gallery of a has a greatwebsite, as you would expect.
Hufkins Um, but also there'ssome very interesting uh
interviews with her that you canfind online.
You can put her name intoYouTube and you can hear her
talk about her work and herexperiences in her own words, um
, and then you know.
Then, of course, and herexperiences in her own words,
(42:43):
and then you know.
Then, of course, you know, it'snot that difficult to look into
.
You know, acquiring work.
I mean, there's an easy way tosearch for things.
Jeppe Curth (42:58):
Yeah, that's it Good, thank you.
Anything else to add here inthe end?
Nicholas Robinson (43:04):
No, I don't think so.
I mean, I think we've prettymuch covered all there is to
cover, certainly for thepurposes of what we're here to
talk about.
So yeah, thank you for today.
Jeppe Curth (43:17):
Yeah, thank you very much.
That was it for this episode ofthe Collector's Edge.
If you are looking for expertinsights, what to make informed
decision and would like advicefrom independent advisors, send
us an email or maybe just callus.
You can find all the info onour website,
nordicartpartnerscom.
(43:38):
Thank you for listening and wehope to have you back for
another episode.
Bye.
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