At Storm King, Sculptor Lynda Benglis Stakes Out Hudson Valley’s Hills

An artist who became famous charging she was overlooked is given space to shine

Lynda Benglis at Storm King Art Center.
Lynda Benglis’ North South East West, 2009, Cast bronze fountain and steel. (Courtesy Storm King Art Center)

 

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Lush outdoor sculpture park Storm King welcomed the summer formally last weekend with the bang (or rather, many bangs) of a gong. The institution’s annual Summer Solstice sunset salute was staged adjacent to a Mark di Suvero giant metal sculpture. It comes complete with giant hammer to ring its tone. Many guests took advantage of the opportunity.

A unique space, Storm King was founded 53 years ago by H. Peter Stern and Ralph E. Ogden, metals manufacturer, to display sculptures, some quite large, outdoors in the hills of the Hudson Valley. Popular from its founding, the sculptures are often sited on the works by their own sculptors, famed artists such as  Isamu Noguchi, Di Suvero and Claes Oldenberg.

 

pink ladies storm king
Detail from Pink Ladies, by Lynda Benglis, at Storm King Art Center.

This summer, the 500-acre property about an hour north of New York in New Windsor, NY, is showcasing the work of Lynda Benglis whose striking and/or phosphorescent fountains are the center’s main summer exhibition (on top of an extensive, top-quality collection that also includes Zhang Huan, Alexander Calder, David Smith and Maya Lin, among others). The show is entitled “Water Sources.”

Storm King Art Center
HIlltop view of the Storm King Art Center, NY. (Courtesy Storm King Art Center)

Benglis, 73, has a cult following for her memorable sculptures in organic shapes, often made of wax or latex. (She is also known for her videos.) At this summer exhibition, her works included North South East West, 2009, an atmospheric and abstract sculpture/fountain of bronze and steel which seemed to invoke ancient dinosaurs/insects and Pink Ladies, a vividly colored piece that cascaded with water (and had a drink named after it at the fete, the consumption of which probably spurred a lot of that gong-ringing.)

Lynda Benglis at the opening of her retrospective at the New Museum, 2011.  © Patrick McMullan== Photo - Nicholas Hunt / PatrickMcMullan.com
Lynda Benglis at the opening of her retrospective at the New Museum, 2011.
© Patrick McMullan
Photo – Nicholas Hunt / PatrickMcMullan.com

The whip-smart, white-haired pixie looks like a kindly relative today, but became famous initially for an attention-getting series of advertisements of herself gleaming and naked that she placed in art magazines in1974 meant to critique the art world’s emphasis on male art and artists. (She memorably wore a dildo for some of the ads.)

Maya Lin's Wave Field (Courtesy Storm King)
Maya Lin’s Wave Field (Courtesy Storm King Art Center)

Today, the Museum of Modern Art owns more than a dozen Benglis works.

 

At Storm King, Sculptor Lynda Benglis Stakes Out Hudson Valley’s Hills