September 27 – October 3: Screening of Lynda Benglis, Collage, 1973

Stream the short video by Lynda Benglis directly on this page from September 27 through October 3.

Lynda Benglis, Collage, 1973 (still), 4:3 video, color, sound, 9:30 min. © 2020 Lynda Benglis. Courtesy Video Data Bank, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Three basic compositions are played and recombined in Lynda Benglis’s video Collage: a hockey game; arms swinging across the screen; and a hand holding one, two, then three oranges. As in her other work, Benglis plays with several generations of each shot, rescanning the screen, and placing objects in front of the monitor. Organized around color and rhythm, each segment uses bright colors, rapid movements, and complex layers of images to present a mesmerizing compendium of information that frustrates any sense of narrative. The accompanying soundtrack is an independent collage of noises, feedback and static that create a gritty aural texture.

This screening of Collage coincides with Paula Cooper Gallery’s three-person exhibition of work by Lynda Benglis, Eric N. Mack, and Kelley Walker—examining the artists’ shared interest in vernacular and the liminal space between media. Their distinct bodies of work are linked by a perceptive and hand-crafted approach to adornment—transforming quotidian or mass-produced materials through layering, draping and collage. The resulting objects impart looseness and raw mutability, seeming to capture a momentary articulation in the life of the form. Learn more about the exhibition here or schedule an appointment to visit the show here.

Courtesy of Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, vdb.org