Lynda Benglis

Lynda Benglis’s Hills and Clouds depicts a landscape draped over an architectonic structure that holds up and in some areas pierces organic, phosphorescent forms.

This presentation of Hills and Clouds follows the work’s debut in the outdoor environs of Storm King Art Center in 2015, where the phosphorescent pigment that Benglis used to create the sculpture transformed it into a glowing spectral presence each evening after darkness fell. Benglis created Hills and Clouds using cast polyurethane, phosphorescent pigment, and stainless steel. Benglis, who created her first phosphorescent piece in 1971, has long been intrigued by natural phosphorescence, whether found in bioluminescent waters and phosphorescent caves or in the glow of fireflies. About this work, Benglis has said: “I wanted to imply something that appears to rise instead of being connected entirely to the earth. I always work with materials and question how I can push them further...how far can I go with the allusion of the material?...It’s a matter of creating an image that moves.”

Since the 1960s, Lynda Benglis has been celebrated for the free, ecstatic forms she has made that are simultaneously playful and visceral, organic and abstract. Benglis began her career in the midst of Postminimal art, pushing the traditions of painting and sculpture into new territories.