WEBVTT 00:00:07.660 --> 00:00:11.960 [Lynda Benglis: "The Wave of the World"] 00:00:12.860 --> 00:00:14.560 [SOUND OF CICADAS] 00:00:18.260 --> 00:00:23.120 I feel that all artists are in a kind of situation 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:26.240 that patterns their early memories. 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:31.280 I was born in Louisiana-- 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:32.740 Lake Charles, Louisiana. 00:00:34.420 --> 00:00:38.680 I remember taking little sticks and little mossy forms 00:00:38.680 --> 00:00:41.860 and somebody told me that you could make a boat that way, 00:00:41.860 --> 00:00:44.940 with a leaf, and a stick, and a mossy form. 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:52.180 So I began playing with what was on the ground a lot-- 00:00:52.180 --> 00:00:54.680 just thinking about nature. 00:00:55.780 --> 00:00:57.660 I think all children do that. 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:04.060 Later, I would travel the bayous in the motorboat. 00:01:04.900 --> 00:01:08.400 Louisiana had a whole area of waterways 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:10.080 that then lead to the Gulf. 00:01:10.460 --> 00:01:13.440 So there were all kinds of channels and waterways, 00:01:13.440 --> 00:01:14.480 and I knew them. 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:19.640 I really preferred being on the water in that way 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:22.220 and discovering all these different things-- 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:24.840 boats that had sunken many years ago. 00:01:26.780 --> 00:01:28.920 [SOUND OF RAIN DROPS HITTING WOODEN BOARDS] 00:01:29.460 --> 00:01:30.740 [Queens, New York] 00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:46.060 [SOUND OF METAL CHAINS CLANKING] 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:49.320 [Bob Spring, Modern Art Foundry] 00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:50.940 [BOB SPRING] This is a little bit like, 00:01:50.940 --> 00:01:52.040 "Welcome back, Lynda." 00:01:53.880 --> 00:01:56.360 Lynda made the model for this-- 00:01:56.360 --> 00:01:57.580 this piece-- 00:01:57.580 --> 00:01:58.620 in this room. 00:01:58.940 --> 00:02:00.600 [SOUNDS OF POWER TOOLS AGAINST METAL] 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:06.020 [BENGLIS] I was so grateful. 00:02:06.460 --> 00:02:08.320 I thought it could have been lost at sea; 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:10.040 I didn't know where it was, 00:02:10.480 --> 00:02:13.640 and then I saw it being stored in Louisiana. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.140 Now, those people that know it and know the history 00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:19.600 can see the fountain! 00:02:21.720 --> 00:02:25.000 It was a World's Fair contest in New Orleans; 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.660 it was the last World's Fair in 1984. 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:31.960 So I entered my idea, which was a wave. 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:34.900 I've always been intrigued by waves-- 00:02:34.900 --> 00:02:38.520 not the large ones that you see at Acapulco and the Pacific, 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:40.320 you know where they roll in and they could.... 00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:43.460 But I was always intrigued by these little Gulf waves 00:02:43.460 --> 00:02:45.840 because that's the first that I saw. 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:49.060 I think it was maybe in the Seventies, 00:02:49.060 --> 00:02:51.000 I had the idea of doing fountains. 00:02:51.580 --> 00:02:54.380 Because really, what I was doing with the urethane 00:02:54.380 --> 00:02:57.880 was a frozen kind of liquid form, 00:02:57.880 --> 00:03:03.520 and I thought that that liquid form could be so beautifully extended with water. 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:07.540 I had done waves off the wall. 00:03:08.300 --> 00:03:11.340 For this, I wanted to do a free-standing one. 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:20.240 I did this seventeen-and-a-half foot cantilever in bronze 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:27.380 of the idea of this liquid bronze umbrella-ing out and having water. 00:03:28.420 --> 00:03:32.660 [BOB SPRING] And she constructed the model for this out of foam. 00:03:32.660 --> 00:03:36.360 [BENGLIS] One-to-one ratio, six-pound density polyurethane foam. 00:03:36.940 --> 00:03:39.880 I was using a wire structure underneath, 00:03:39.880 --> 00:03:43.420 and in this case, I had the idea of the weather balloon. 00:03:43.940 --> 00:03:48.540 [BOB SPRING] So she had underneath here the original shape of this 00:03:48.540 --> 00:03:50.620 and then covered with plastic. 00:03:50.620 --> 00:03:52.960 And then she started applying the foam 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:54.240 and letting it run. 00:03:55.220 --> 00:03:57.160 And the whole room had to all be sealed off, 00:03:57.160 --> 00:03:58.360 and she was in a... 00:03:59.140 --> 00:04:02.760 well, today you would almost call it a space suit, 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:06.600 because the fumes from this were a little bit toxic. 00:04:07.260 --> 00:04:09.360 And so we had to bring fresh air in from outside-- 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:13.220 it went through a tube into her little uniform. 00:04:14.200 --> 00:04:16.060 After she was finished with the model, 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:17.760 we made the molds on it. 00:04:18.840 --> 00:04:20.840 And we made the casting. 00:04:24.460 --> 00:04:27.080 Inside is an arrangement of pipes, 00:04:27.080 --> 00:04:29.640 water chambers, and everything else. 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:36.440 And it's very nice to have it back. 00:04:36.440 --> 00:04:38.420 And we'll take care of it for her, 00:04:38.420 --> 00:04:39.320 and everything else. 00:04:43.180 --> 00:04:45.960 [JEFFREY SPRING] I mean, this piece was in a storage area 00:04:45.960 --> 00:04:47.760 for years after the World's Fair, 00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:48.840 so it's aged. 00:04:48.840 --> 00:04:50.200 [Jeffrey Spring, Modern Art Foundry] 00:04:50.960 --> 00:04:54.400 The surface needs to be restored--or re-colored-- 00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:55.840 to her satisfaction. 00:04:56.980 --> 00:05:00.180 As long as the water works right, that's what really is left. 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:03.780 --[BENGLIS] Okay, so no tooling, right? 00:05:04.020 --> 00:05:04.820 --Nothing? 00:05:04.820 --> 00:05:05.740 --[MAN] We just cut the gates... 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:06.540 --[BENGLIS] Yeah, yeah... 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:08.240 --[MAN] ...and give a finish on the surface. 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.060 --[BENGLIS] Good. Okay, let's have the water. 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.200 [SOUND OF WATER SPLASHING AGAINST CONCRETE] 00:05:16.840 --> 00:05:20.800 [BENGLIS] I was very excited to find that it was still in existence. 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:23.560 [Kenner, Louisiana] 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:26.980 It was in a sort of heap of things out in the open, 00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:28.880 and forgotten about-- 00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:29.940 totally forgotten about. 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:34.700 I had thought the hurricane might have cast it away 00:05:34.700 --> 00:05:36.480 and it was some anchor somewhere. 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:44.400 [SOUND OF WATER SPLASHING IN FOUNTAIN] 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:46.080 [New Orleans, Louisiana] 00:05:47.020 --> 00:05:50.800 [On label: Lynda Benglis; American, born 1941; "The Wave of the World," 1983–1984; Bronze; On loan from City of Kenner; Underwritten by The Helis Foundation] 00:05:51.860 --> 00:05:54.660 I think of my work as being very classical. 00:05:55.260 --> 00:05:59.240 Essentially, I think I repeat ideas of nature, 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:02.180 and I process them and interpret them. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:06.760 I realize that what we learn to do 00:06:06.760 --> 00:06:09.860 is repress our titillations 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:12.320 or our feelings about what we see 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:14.580 and we call it 'taste'. 00:06:15.780 --> 00:06:18.120 What is the way we see? 00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:23.000 What do we respond to without creating a taste 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:25.540 that's agreeable to everyone? 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.580 I'm not trying to satisfy anyone. 00:06:30.780 --> 00:06:33.500 I really make things because I'm curious-- 00:06:33.500 --> 00:06:34.780 that's the reason. 00:06:34.780 --> 00:06:36.300 I don't think of shows, 00:06:36.300 --> 00:06:38.180 I don't think of anything other than, 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:42.040 "It's exciting for me to feel that same excitement" 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:43.880 "that I felt as a kid."