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Critical Mumble: Benglis 73/74

Toby Daniel Juliff
Eyeline 83
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Curator: Geoff Newton

 

The story has been told many times before so I will try to keep it brief. Throughout 1972-74 Lynda Benglis and sometime collaborator Robert Morris exchanged a number of video essays and interventions culminating in the advertising pages of Artforum. These ‘interventions’ (paid-for advertisements existing outside of editorial control and thus forming a new relationship with the Artforum readership) reached their apotheosis with a double-page image of a naked Benglis, obligatory sunglasses and Californian tan in tow, with an oversized double-headed dildo thrusting from her groin. The centrefold image, two-thirds of it blank, marked out a singular gesture in the politics of intervention and led (in part, but not exclusively as is often suggested) to the resignation of sub-editors Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson and the establishment in 1976 of October journal. The controversy, the hilarious responses across letter pages in subsequent issues, and a series of ill-conceived imitative gestures, has brought about a number of critical reviews, essays, monographs and, in 2009, a thirty-fifth anniversary reflection at Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, that dwelt on the juicier legacy of the Benglis-Morris correspondence.

What, we might say, is left to be said forty years on? Geoff Newton’s triple-headed dildo of a show ‘Benglis 73/74’ at Neon Parc, Sutton Projects and TCB Art Inc. leaves it to her contemporaries and to subsequent generations of artists to dwell on the range of possibilities offered by the Benglis-Morris intervention. Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe and Julian Dashper represent international artists mobilising the lexicon of the artist intervention after Benglis-Morris. John Nixon is there — as he always seems to be of late — to remind us of the burden

'Benglis 73/74'. Installation view, Neon Parc, Melbourne.

'Benglis 73/74'. Installation view, Neon Parc, Melbourne. left to right: Sarah Lucas, Bucket of Tea, A, 1993-2013. Four cut colour photographs on red Perspex, chrome tubing, wire, dimensions variable. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London; Jeff Koons Studio, La Cicciolina, 1991. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz. With 8 studio Xeroxes. Ed 9/50, 21 x 14.8cm; Scott Redford, Yellow and Chrome Berlin, 2014. Collages, 77 x 77cm, 84 x 74cm, 8 parts. Courtesy the artist and Gould Galleries, Melbourne; Tyza Stewart, Nicole/Tyza, 2014. Oil on board, 45 x 30cm. Courtesy the artist and Heiser Gallery, Brisbane; General Idea, Test Tube, 1979. 28:15min, colour, sound. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, New York. 

'Benglis 73/74'. Installation view, Sutton Project space.

'Benglis 73/74'. Installation view, Sutton Project space. left to right, back: Stuart Ringholt, Page 133, 2009. 26 x 26.5cm. Edition of 2. Page 255, 2009. 26 x 26.5cm. Edition of 2. Page 2, 2009. 26 x 26.5cm. Edition of 2. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane; Robert Morris, Williams College Clark Court Proposal, 1977. Lithograph, 50 x 70cm; Dale Frank, Casper, 1997. Varnish and glass balls on printed vinyl, 119 x 306cm. Get Ready to Jam (Portrait of the Artist accompanied by Michael Jordan on a Day Trip to the MCA), 1997. Wiggle eyes and paper on printed vinyl, 134 x 297cm. She's the Only Thing Better than Being There, 1997. Mixed media on printed vinyl, 119 x 306cm. Apollo 13, 1997. Paper on printed vinyl, 119 x 306cm. Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.