American artist Lynda Benglis is installing her iconic bronzes in the new US consulate in Mumbai later this year.
Leading contemporary American artist Lynda Benglis is installing her iconic bronzes in the new US consulate in Mumbai later this year.
Benglis, 68, is a sculptor, video art creator and all-round force of nature. In the late ’60s, Benglis gave as much of a jolt to the male-dominated New York art world as Janis Joplin gave to the music industry. “Janis was born in Port Arthur, about 35 miles from where I was born in Louisiana,” said Benglis, who showed the same rebellious spark.
Trashing the notion that an artist had to be a man to be taken seriously in the stifling, male-run New York art establishment, a lithe 33-year-old Benglis posed nude in a gender-bending advertisement, sporting just a greased tan.
The ad, taken out to publicise Benglis’ 1974 exhibition in New York, made magazine editors cluck in disapproval, but helped Benglis scored a feminist point.
“I think I was born a feminist. I didn’t like to go to meetings, but studied their philosophies,” she says. Benglis is now pouring her heart into creating 14 bronzes for the new $84 million US consulate in Bandra Kurla complex.
“Lynda has really pushed the envelope. She is a great woman and a fabulous artist. She has a strong connection to India and is creating spectacular bronze pieces for Mumbai,” said Jennifer Duncan, director of the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE), a non-profit organisation which works with the US state department to contribute art to US embassies.
Benglis has been working on the Mumbai project for two years. She is creating the work free of charge.
“It is a loving gift to Mumbai and the people of India,” said Benglis. “I have a connection with India for 30 years. I am happy my art will find a home in Mumbai which has so many different cultures suffusing its metropolitan character.”
The installations are designed to add warmth to the consulate. “I am interested in organic images that are abstract. Individuals can read into the images and find what they want; it is like one gazes at clouds and spots images. There are Indian tantric symbols — figures of eggs or the world. They might also remind people of sea creatures,” said Benglis.
Benglis first visited India in the 1980s. “The Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta cave sculptures are my favourites. I find Indian people as exciting as the art. The movement of the body, dance and music in India is very natural, and I connected with that,” she added.
The American artist of part-Greek descent says places like India are the very soul of art. “I feel at home in India. I spent six months there last year and worked in a south Indian bell factory. I was interested in the wax they use. It was a good exchange of ideas. I feel happy in India — I get inspired.”
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