Description

Lynda Benglis explains the inspiration for her work in this quote from 1982: "I felt that in the minimalist tradition there was no sense of theater. There was a puritanical quality of the work ethic. . . there was still the idea of the 'heroic gesture' in some way. Having been involved in logic, I wanted to make something that related to the body, that was humanistic, and not machine-like . . . I was interested in a non-logical, contained activity." In her later works, Lynda Benglis often used vertical, unknotted forms that are pinched in the center or at the ends, and layered with a thin skin of gold leaf. As the title of this work implies, Lagniappe 1 makes references to cheap, take-away gifts for costumers, but also to the human body, especially female attributes.