An Unlikely Match: Modernism and Feminism in Lynda Benglis’s Contraband

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article argues that a close analysis of Benglis’s Contraband reveals a tapping into abstract expressionist modes of making as a way to broadcast a loud, feminist message. The author writes quite beautifully and highlights aspects of this history (Benglis’s decision not to keep Contraband in the Whitney’s exhibition Anti-Illusion; Benglis’s relation to abstract expressionism and to feminism) that have not been highlighted so thoroughly before. I feel like the main strength is the way the author encourages us to examine Contraband – the work itself and the drama surrounding it—closely, sussing out layers of meaning. I think there’s potential for a more substantial contribution but that the author needs to be more careful in various ways: in laying out the historical context of this artwork; in substantiating various claims (as I’ll enumerate below); and in drawing conclusions from the available evidence.

The argument itself, as it stands, doesn’t strike me as nearly as new or original as the author seems to claim. The author has things to add to existing explorations of Benglis’s relationship to modern art and feminism, but they need to be more careful about figuring out what exactly they have to add. For example, I take the following sentence to be the author asserting their contribution: “Benglis’s work, I would like to suggest, shows us that modernism’s contribution was actually its unwitting contribution to feminism.” It seems odd to me that the author doesn’t cite Anne Wagner’s discussion of Benglis in her introduction to Three Artists (Three Women). Wagner might be making a slightly different point than this author, but it’s certainly a relevant discussion—and arguably a significant example of someone else having already made this point.

I’m not sure how the author should adjust their argument to acknowledge that this insight (about modernism & feminism) isn’t perhaps as revelatory as they suggest. I think that if they carefully substantiate their claims, a slightly different argument may emerge—and that that argument might be more helpful than the current.

Most urgently I think the author needs to spend more time on what exactly is going on with Contraband and feminism. They need to fix the language in the abstract, which makes it sound like Contraband challenged “feminist art,” even though in the article itself the author acknowledges that Contraband pre-dated “feminist art” (depending on how one defines “feminist art”—but I think the author is mostly referring to 1970s feminist art). As others have discussed, Benglis has a somewhat fraught relationship with feminism and feminist art. That should be cited here (Richmond, Obler, various interviews they cite).

That might help them think more thoroughly through the final claim about Benglis’s aggressiveness. This understanding of Benglis’s Contraband as aggressive is important to the article, and I’m intrigued by the claim but not fully convinced. I have all sorts of notes to myself when they introduced the issue of aggression. Interesting, but is it an over-simplification? Ab Ex, for starters, is so much more than aggression—e.g. also anguish. When Benglis calls herself a “mad girl,” do we know she means “angry” as opposed to slightly bonkers? I’m not feeling Contraband as a “river of rage.” I maybe could be convinced, but that’s not how I experience it so far. I was way more compelled by the earlier description of it as “Crayola soup” (although there I thought the author could add that someone had spilled the soup). Why is Benglis’s confronting / exploring the dialectic between high/low “aggressive”? I need more of an explanation / substantiation / argument. I appreciate that they don’t dwell on the Artforum ad, which could be construed as “aggressive.” But focusing on the “mad girl” and Contraband to make the case for aggression: well, we’re very much in the territory of negative stereotypes of women, and Benglis (I think) is someone who’s super aware of stereotypes and plays with them. So yes, aggression is part of what’s going on here, probably, but in what ways? In relation to what other modes? With what range of connotations / associations?

 

I’ll go through the paper now with various comments as they came along:

 

I think you could do a better job with citation. E.g. you describe an “inflexible dictum” that feminist art and modernist painting are mortal enemies. Whose dictum is this? How long did people believe this? It’s important to be more specific here because Contraband predates the feminist art that you describe here, so you need to be more careful about how you’re setting up your argument to make clear why the dictum matters to Contraband. You deal with Contraband’s contribution to feminist art at the end of the paper, but it’s confusing here at the beginning.

            In general, be careful with your assertions. Eg. you say the exhibition could’ve jumpstarted Benglis’s career, but I wondered whether the publicity from pulling out the piece also may have contributed to jumpstarting her career?

            If possible, it would be great if you could illustrate some installation shots that you cite but don’t show.

            Formatting issues (which are probabaly irrelevant to this review): make sure to use block quotes for the block quotes. (Also the essay needs copy-editing – there are some repeated passages).

            When you first bring up the “mad little girl,” you seem to take this as evidence of Benglis’s feminism, but what kind of feminism is it to call yourself a “mad little girl”? Not all 2^nd-wave feminists would approve, surely…

            The article is on the whole very well written, but sometimes I wanted you to scrutinize your claims a little more assiduously. E.g. Your discussion of “real causes.” This discussion seems a bit simplistic. How do you determine which causes get to count as real? Why are you so skeptical of her account from 1974? Even if the curators were alive, their version of events might also be different now than then. Why do you think it would be more valuable to talk to Tucker now than read her memoir, which you later cite? You seem to be making a lot out of what is all pretty basic historical procedure. And of course (I would say), in art history, interpretation is necessary. It’s important to line up as many facts as we can, but that evidence only goes so far because art involves so much subjectivity.

            In other words I think you can finesse this section. What does come through here—and what I think you could simply highlight more straightforwardly—is that there were many factors in Benglis’s withdrawal of Contraband. While on some literal level, the size mattered (to the curators, @ Schwabsky, @ Benglis sometimes but not at other times), Contraband’s lack of fit with “anti-illusion” mattered, too. And also, do these factors have to be mutually exclusive—can’t they co-exist? We can’t ever really know what’s going on in other people’s heads, but it does seem significant that Benglis made something so big that it would inevitably cause issues at the Whitney—she knew the architecture there.

            “Modernist method of transforming materials to fashion a work of art”: can you be more specific? Why is this modernist? Certain readers may know what you mean (e.g. modernist as opposed to avant-garde; not Duchamp’s lineage), but others will not. Think about undergrad students who might read this article – what background do you need to provide so that they can understand that you are talking about a very specific discourse on “modernist art” that Benglis would’ve understood even though it’s arguably not that relevant to emerging artists now, or not on artists’ radars in the same way.

            “What is often said”: cite – if it’s said so often, you should be able to find people who have said it.

            I like the idea of Contraband as a form of institutional critique (is that going too far?).

• “debacle”: wc?

            I would love if you could illustrate the boulder installed at the Whitney – although your descriptions do a great job if you can’t.

            • hyper – wc [just as parents aren’t supposed to call their children “hyper” anymore, perhaps art historians should think twice before engaging with this terminology?]

• complimented – do you mean complemented?

• Duchampian boulder – but also perhaps more importantly allusions to suiseki?

• “liberal” – you presumably have something specific in mind, but this can be so many things depending on the context – explain further what you mean by “liberal” or delete (e.g. seems like for you there’s a negative connotation? why?) (and is “liberal” historically accurate; do we know if the curators & artists would’ve thought of themselves as liberal? leftist?)

 

            I really enjoyed learning more about the boulder, although I think the discussion could be a little more carefully organized. It’s such a thought-provoking comparison with Contraband, but quite complicated b/c it’s not like they’re totally opposite—they also have various things in common. These overlaps emerge in your discussion, but I think you could make your points more persuasively if you were more careful to acknowledge the overlaps early on—and then explain the significance of the differences? Perhaps provide a roadmap (Boulder raises various issues including newness, labor, nature….) and then work through the issues. As it stands, I felt like you were only going to focus on “newness,” and I was wondering about labor, which you get to later. Re: labor, I was thinking about Sisyphus – the uselessness of art? Perhaps worth mentioning. (Minor note: “rather literal earth tones”: delete rather?).

            I then got really confused during your discussion about nature vs. artist’s choice. It seemed like you wanted to condemn Bollinger and Ferrer but then got interested despite yourself—and indeed, to me it seems that it’s simplistic to try to assert that somehow everything Benglis is doing is awesome versus being totally hostile to the other artists’ Duchampian anti-modernism. You don’t have to like it, but from your discussion it’s clear that these are all artists addressing related issues in different ways. Perhaps you would be able to organize the discussion more clearly if you explored these overlaps, acknowledged them, and then point to the differences (I realize I just said that).

            Keep an eye out for varying word choice (e.g. delicate; gambit).

            Your footnote re: contraband is so rich—perhaps some of this deserves to be in the body of the paper?

            Can you cite the person who saw Liberty Leading the People in the swirls?

            In your discussion of process, it would be helpful to spell out a little more clearly that Benglis is referring to something very specific. Without knowing about that context, yeah, her comment doesn’t make sense. But it does make sense when you know that she’s distinguishing herself from Process art. You sort of do this work, but you could do it more clearly and thoroughly. It would likely be helpful to look up Kim Grant, All About Process: The Theory and Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. And I think you could be a little more authoritative about what Bengis means re: process. Sure, we can never know for sure, but you can provide us with an education suggestion.

“I offer concluding remarks’ – seemed a little early to conclude? you haven’t even really begun to explain how Benglis situates herself vis-à-vis feminism. Perhaps that means it would be helpful to discuss Benglis’s relation to feminism earlier in the paper. This paragraph as a whole was too dense for me: I would like you to unpack your ideas / explain them more carefully. Say more about why you think Benglis’s work:  ‘shows us that master narratives can have a productive function for feminism.” And I’m not sure what the last sentence of the paragraph has to do with the rest of the paragraph – to me it sounds like Pincus-Witten potentially pigeonholing Benglis back into some kind of sexist stereotype – I would need to look at the essay as a whole to defend that, but ‘formal volatility” as ‘primary message’ left me cringing…

            • “mastery not inconsistent w/ feminist art history”: you might look again at Obler’s conclusion to the article you cite, which I think also aims in some ways to reconcile Benglis’s form of mastery with feminist art history.

What art historians posit a passive relation between artist and materials as central to feminist art history? You cite Foster, but I’m not sure that your citation is actually evidence of your point? If it is, I would need you to explain it more carefully .

How relevant is Lippard’s 2007 assertion? It seems a bit anachronistic – perhaps useful in your thinking through, but I need more of a sense of what was going on with debates re: modernist art / feminism (art or otherwise); and ab ex in 1969.

            This was the section where I wanted you to cite Wagner—and to spell out the relationship but also tension between artists who are women and “feminism.”

            Make sure to point out that Silman is an artist—the  transition from a discussion of art history is a little abrupt and misleading if people don’t know who she is.

 “Nudie activity ‘ – how does that relate to what you’re talking about?  Here again, discussion seems a little too compressed; needs more unpacking / explanation – what is your thought process? is this the most relevant evidence or actually anachronistic?

Why say that Benglis is Silman-style – shouldn’t it be the opposite? Since Benglis came first? If you’re trying to claim that Benglis had an impact on feminist art, perhaps say more about her impact on Silman?

            You mention 2^nd-wave consciousness raising without explaining how it relates to Contraband – again with the anachronism. Clarify how you understand this history working.

            Another contribution you think your essay is making is that “voice is crucial for the feminist project”—as if no one else has made this claim? You need to be more aware of how your claim relates to existing scholarship. I would recommend Lorraine O’Grady, “Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity,” in Amelia Jones, ed., The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (London/NY: Routledge, 2003), 136-50—an example of an artist criticizing the “death of the artist” just as certain artists were finally getting to be artists.

            Re: pigeonholing, note that “Jack of all trades” is connected to the phrase “master of none.”

            It’s near the end that you acknowledge that your focus is on a moment before 2^nd wave feminism rises up—this needs to come earlier!

            I love Angry Louise, but it makes me feel like something is missing (as per my discussion of your discussion of aggression above). Angry Louise is clear about anger (although also kind of funny?). Perhaps use this comparison to get at what is special about Benglis’s form of anger  / aggression? It’s not that she seems angry about Ab Ex… So yeah, maybe more aggression, or playing with how assertion morphs into aggression b/c the art world can’t take a strong, vocal woman…  A celebration of her loud voice, even if some will find that aggressive? Maybe also spend a little more time disentangling Contraband, the work itself, with the hubbub that surrounded it because of Anti-Illusion? I like how you address both, but I think the strands get muddled.

 

Re: lineages, perhaps also worth looking at Obler’s “Benglis Recrafts Abstract Expressionism.”

 

            I really enjoyed reading this article! It has great potential, and I look forward to reading a revised version.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

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Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. I moderated some of my claims, added citations, and addressed organizational issues. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting close look Lynda Benglis' Contraband. It's central premise seems to concern asserting Benglis' relationship to, and advance on, modernism. In this, the author wants to break with the association between Benglis and process, and perhaps to assert her place within longer standing histories of abstraction. They claim that this is shaped around Benglis' feminism, or the broader context of "second wave" feminism. The author concludes by asking us to consider the emotional valences of modernist humanism and its potential legacies in the present via Eve Metzler and Amy Sillman. They also seem to suggest that this project was already underway within "second wave" feminism. 

The author's revisionist approach is worthwhile and does allow us to see Benglis' work from an interesting perspective. I think this could be better expressed. In particular, the article requires a better overall framing. Although there is an interesting opener, the importance of this context to the article is overstated and nothing of the argument developed is signposted. Could the author state their claims more clearly at the outset and better describe the relevance of their argumentative turns, as well as the evidence cited? 

I would also suggest that the author review their prose in a few places. While I have no general issue with using the first person, it is sometimes overused here, and discerning statements about detective work, or not being able to unpack everything in a particular quotations, although well meaning, sometimes undermine the writing. 

I also felt there could be clearer engagement with feminism. At present feminism here encompasses women's liberation activism, the women's art movement, feminist discursive intervention, experiments in feminist art making, feminist and queer theories of performativity and queer-feminism. While I agree these aspects of feminism overlap, there should be some more precision in the discussion of Benglis' relationship to feminism, and the ways that her relates to feminist considerations of art. For instance,  Benglis is akin to Sillman, then perhaps the argument should be about the artist's queer-feminist approach to modernism, rather than in the way she employs a pseduo-CR-technique in her work. For the latter argument to be made, it would require more historical / art historical introduction and context. 

Generally, it would be worth reviewing some of the texts cited and their historical specificity – for instance should one use Owens after problematising structuralism-post-structuralism via Metzler? This may be resolved by some restructuring, including a better establishment of Benglis' feminism, before launching into the discussion of the value, and recent reevalution of, modernism and ab ex.  

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English was good - I've noted some points on syntax / usage above. 

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. I moderated some of my claims, added citations, and addressed organizational issues.