Baby Planet, 1969

Pigmented latex
© 2022 Lynda Benglis/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo by Ian Reeves. 

For more than fifty years, Lynda Benglis has been exploring shape and surface to produce works notable for their formal innovation and material specificity. Adopting a broad range of media, she exploits the physical qualities of each substance and challenges our understanding of the ways in which it should behave and function. Benglis is perhaps best known for the brightly colored works in poured latex—Baby Planet included—that she began making in the late 1960s. Bridging the gap between painting and sculpture, these “fallen paintings,” as the artist termed them, were produced by pouring gallons of pigmented liquid latex from large cans directly onto the floor to create organic shapes. Exploiting the material’s fluidity to develop layers of color, Benglis worked without premeditation or correction. She deliberately selected Day-Glo colors, aiming to generate what she described as a radiant “fluorescence” that would cause the works to “seem to ‘bounce’ from the floor surface.”