Cheim & Read

Lynda Benglis & Adam Fuss

07 - 11 Mar 2012

© Lynda Benglis
Foam Painting I 2009
polyurethane foam and acrylic on wire mesh
24 x 15 1/4 x 12 in 61 x 38.7 x 30.5 cm
LYNDA BENGLIS & ADAM FUSS
Knots and Entrails: The Art Show / Park Avenue Armory
7 - 11 March, 2012

For their ADAA booth this year, Cheim & Read is pleased to present a two-person exhibition: “Benglis/Fuss: Knots and Entrails.” Lynda Benglis (knots) and Adam Fuss (entrails) are thematically united by the organic nature of their imagery and their intuitive juxtaposition of the erotic and visceral. Though emerging from distinctly different generations (Benglis was born 1941; Fuss 20 years later) and using distinctly different mediums (sculpture and photography), the two artists are driven by remarkably similar concerns. Devoted to their working process and the physicality of natural form, they each allow for elements of chance, often working with difficult-to-control materials. Benglis is well-known for gestural works of poured latex and foam; her compositions blur the distinction between hard and soft, flaccid and firm. Fuss is recognized for his light-infused photograms of newborn babies, water, and eviscerated rabbits. Ultimately, both artists’ compositions reside with the metaphorical, alluding to themes concerning the body, nature, transformation and perception.

For the ADAA booth, Cheim & Read focuses on sculptural foam abstractions by Benglis, and will also show her 1973 PSI, a contorted, cord-like sculpture fabricated with aluminum screen, cotton bunting and plaster. Fuss is represented by recent, large-scale photograms of coiled pig intestines. Inextricably intertwined, the works’ imagery is simultaneously seductive and grotesque. The tactile, oozing, and multi-dimensional surfaces of Benglis’s knotted forms complement the smooth luminosity of Fuss’s photographic abstractions. Color is used to heighten the effect: Benglis adds acrylic, silver paint and glitter to highlight and rebel against pure formalism; the digestive enzymes of Fuss’s source material interact with photo-sensitive chemicals to produce shocking pinks and blues, contrasting the gravity of his subject. Both artists’ imagery invites comparison to the gestural abstractions of Jackson Pollock. The AbEx painter’s drips and skeins of color are appropriated, liberated, and ultimately redefined in new context.

Lynda Benglis resides in New York, Santa Fe and Ahmedabad, India. Her work has been acquired by several important public collections, including: Guggenheim Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Benglis was the subject of a 2010-11 international retrospective which traveled to: The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Le Consortium, Dijon; New Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Adam Fuss has lived and worked in New York City since 1982. Widely shown, his work is represented in many American and international collections, including: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
For more information please contact the gallery at 212
 

Tags: Lynda Benglis, Adam Fuss, Jackson Pollock