Lynda Benglis‘ sculptures are motley in makeup, manifold in their evocations of natural features and visceral gestures. Variously forged of steel, bronze, polyurethane, chicken wire, handmade paper, glitter and clay, her splanchnic forms droop, lean, ooze, peel, wriggle, slither, curl, swell, drip, float, swirl, jell, and even glow. Navigating Blum & Poe‘s cavernous galleries enhances awareness of one’s own corporeality in relation to Benglis’ unnamable morphologies ranging in scale from monumental to minute. Dripping with glow-in-the-dark polyurethane and mercurial poured steel, HILLS AND CLOUDS (2014, pictured above) evokes beached mats of algae, or bald cypress treetops swathed in Spanish moss in the artist’s native Louisiana. One can imagine this colossal sculpture phosphorescing as a noctilucent cloud over a meadow at Storm King where it once was displayed. An interior geometric network of rigid rectilinear beams supports the silvery draped surface as the skeleton of a decaying hut or the underside of bleachers. Nearby, a mangled metal figure leans against a wall like a giant Giacometti. Smaller but equally evocative works include sparkly sculptures of paper stretched like skin over wire bones, and a suite of painterly ceramics. These lively pieces impart the activity of their creation. In challenging Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, sexism and other art world praxes, Benglis has carved out idiosyncratic sculptural idioms whose breadth others can only emulate.

Blum & Poe
2727 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
Show runs through Dec. 16