Detail L: Robert Morris, poster for exhibition at Castelli-Sonnabend, April 1974
Detail R: Lynda Benglis, advertisement in Artforum, November 1974
specific object / david platzker
presents
Lynda Benglis / Robert Morris : 1973 - 1974
an exhibition to be held at Susan Inglett Gallery
June 18 - July 31, 2009
Specific Object / David Platzker is pleased to announce the opening of
Lynda Benglis / Robert Morris : 1973 - 1974. The exhibition will be on view at Susan Inglett Gallery from June 18 - July 31, 2009 located at 522 West 24th Street, New York City.
In this project Specific Object presents ephemera, magazine articles, video tapes and other artworks and supporting materials that lead up to, and include, Robert Morris' seminal chains and helmet Castelli-Sonnabend poster and Lynda Benglis infamous
Artforum advertisement, both of which appeared in 1974. Additionally, the exhibition incorporates never before seen, unpublished letters to the editors of
Artforum as well as published responses from within
Artforum. The exhibition cumulates with Lucy Lippard's essay "Transformation Art," published in Ms. Magazine in
October 1975 and the inaugural issue of
October which was founded following the departure of
Artforum's associate editors Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson in spring 1976.
While both artists trace a very specific line in their work to include both nude self-imagery and the human body as sculptural form, this exhibition is dedicated to a narrow reconsideration of the interplay between Benglis, Morris, and their mocking stereotypes of male / female role play executed between 1973 and 1974.
In 1973 Benglis began using images of herself on announcement cards and within advertisements. A card for her show at The Clocktower featured a childhood photograph of the artist in Greece 1952 wearing a traditional boys soldier's uniform; an advertisement placed in the April 1974 issue of
Artforum featured a stylized image of Benglis in sunglasses, leaning on a Porsche; and a color invitation card issued in May 1974 by Benglis posing herself, in a Betty Grable cheesecake pose, which was shot by Annie Leibovitz.
Concurrently Morris produced a dramatic poster for his April 1974 Castelli-Sonnabend exhibition, photographed by Rosalind Krauss, featuring the artist nude from the waist up clad only in steel chains, wrist restraints, studded collar, sunglasses and a Germany style military field helmet.
Benglis responded with a choreographed double page spread on pages 4 and 5 of the November 1974 issue of
Artforum that became hyper-emblematic of an era -- fully nude Benglis, clad only in sunglasses, holding an oversized rubber dildo extending from her own genitals.
The advertisement reverberated in both expected and unexpected ways – at once celebrated and condemned by feminists, feted and reviled by fellow artists, embraced and rebuffed by intellectuals, banned by some art schools and cited as inspiration by many art students, in short resulting in a seismic realignment within the artworld.
This exhibition examines, within context, the artworks and the reactions that comprise the immediate history following their first appearance in the hopes that visitors will reconsider the exchange separate from the artifice and mythology that has become inseparable from the work over the past thirty-five years.
As described by Lawrence Alloway, Max Kozloff, Krauss, Joseph Masheck, and Annette Michelson in their letter to John Coplans, the then editor of
Artforum and published in the December 1974 issue, "The incident is deeply symptomatic of conditions that call for critical analysis..." and, in fact, conditions that continue to exist today.
The exhibition checklist is available at:
specificobject.com/projects/benglis-morris/Benglis-Morris-Checklist.pdf
REVIEWS OF THE EXHIBITION
Read Roberta Smith's
New York Times review of the exhibition by clicking
here.
Read Kriston Capps'
Art in America review of the exhibition by clicking
here.
Read Michael Wilson's
Time Out New York review of the exhibition by clicking
here.
Read Jen Graves'
The Stranger review of the exhibition by clicking
here.
Read Rachel Wolff's
New York Magazine review of the exhibition by clicking
here.
This exhibition will be on view at:
Susan Inglett Gallery
522 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
Summer Hours: Monday - Friday, 10 AM to 6 PM
For additional information, please contact:
Susan Inglett Gallery at 212.647.9111, fax 212.647.9333
info@inglettgallery.com, www.inglettgallery
-- or --
Specific Object / David Platzker at 212.242.6253
david@specificobject.com, www.specificobject.com
