0:00:20.120,0:00:28.400
[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] I was asked in the early ‘70s[br]to do installations all over the country. And...

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For the price of the materials and my ticket[br]I went to these different places

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and did an artwork.

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[ rapid jazz music ]

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They were like statements[br]of the reality that you’d feel

0:00:49.920,0:00:53.599
in the conversations that artists[br]have with each other

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and with the world[br]and with their times.

0:00:59.240,0:01:05.000
One thing that these works clearly do[br]is state that the process,

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the drawing, texture[br]equal form.

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And it’s about drawing[br]and these ideas have

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come from really painting ideas,[br]yet they’re dimensional.

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This is one thing I’ve always been[br]interested in exploring.

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"Eat Meat" is a sand-cast bronze.

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It has a lovely patina from[br]being out in the elements

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over 30-40 years.

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I think of myself as a painter,[br]probably because I don’t use glue.

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I found my space[br]so to speak

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because I was particularly interested[br]in painterly materials and also form

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and space and where[br]the gesture could take the material.

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All of them are drawn with[br]either a bucket or a can.

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The use of the body,[br]the use of the hand,

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the use of the movement[br]of the body.

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Dancing and rhythm,

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I was just very interested in[br]that kind of bodily gesture.

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- Take it down, Bill. Quick!

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They’re all polyurethane.

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The same polyurethane[br]that’s used in installation.

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I made a couple of pieces[br]of phosphorescence.

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I had to light them and they[br]absorbed the light and

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then the lights were[br]turned off on a timer.

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And what happened,

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because of the flows in the[br]pours and the gravity,

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what you would see is them[br]coming down and rising again

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at the same time.

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I’m very interested in[br]how things change through

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our reading of the gravity[br]and the form.

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If a waterfall freezes,[br]how do you really read it?

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You can read it going up or down[br]and how do you read it?

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[ static buzzing ]

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- This is my sister Jane.

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She's getting on the...

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motorbike.

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Still motorbike.

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Weight-reducing bike.

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The camera had to be turned sideways so I could get Jane in.

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She was riding the bike.

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She's trying to figure out how to turn it on.

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My father's warning her to [br]hold on to the handlebars.

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And it started up.

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Now she wants to turn it off.

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And she's wondering how [br]to turn it off.

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It's being unplugged.

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This is my grandmother's house. We're rounding the corner.

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She lives about ten-minutre ride in small town [br]called Sulphur, Louisiana.

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There she is.

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She looks quite pale to me, and [br]I was very surprised

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that she was so pale.

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She's asking me, what am I doing?

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[ creaking ]

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[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] I really had a very rich childhood I think[br]and also traveled to Greece very early on

0:05:08.320,0:05:09.960
with my grandmother.

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Traveled the islands and[br]into the mountains.

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- Ahh!

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- Well, my bros live out there man.

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[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] [br]It’s pretty classic, Greece.

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They say, even on this island that[br]there were the beginnings of man,

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woman, just really early,[br]early civilization.

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- Oh, well what do you do on a weekend?

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- Nah, man, we go looking for a [br]few fights, you know.

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[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] [br]I was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

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I really liked the carnival on[br]Lake Pontchartrain

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and the funhouse.

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- That girl is so big and so fat,

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it takes four men to hug her [br]and a boxcar to lug her.

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[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] Images jumping out the[br]phosphorescent quality of the images.

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They seemed very real[br]to me at the time.

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- This image here. [br]- This image here?

0:06:01.584,0:06:03.584
- Good.[br]- Which image?

0:06:03.584,0:06:05.000
- Okay, let's start recording now.

0:06:05.000,0:06:06.600
- This image here.[br]- Start recording now.

0:06:06.600,0:06:08.533
- We are recording. [br]- We are recording.

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- Start recording, I said.

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No, I said start recording now.

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- This is a tape I made. [br]- This is a tape he made of a tape she made

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of a tape he made in her studio[br]- In my studio.

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- This is a tape he made

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[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] Louisiana had a whole[br]area of waterways

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that led to a big lake[br]that then led to the Gulf.

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So there were all kinds of channels[br]and I knew them,

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riding around in a little motorcar.

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Being right there on the water.

0:06:38.840,0:06:39.720
I had horses.

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- This tape on screen is raw material.

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Rephotographing his tape made it her work.

0:06:47.447,0:06:50.268
Or commenting on it made it her work.

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Or both.

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She is heard but never seen.

0:06:54.473,0:06:57.050
Nothing here has been rephotographed.

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[ horn honks ]

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[ LYNDA BENGLIS ] It started by an invitation[br]from Anand.

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Anand Sarabhai would like for you[br]to come to India and

0:07:06.600,0:07:11.012
Rauschenberg and Robert Morris[br]are introducing me to you.

0:07:13.649,0:07:17.720
I visited India the last 35 years.

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After about ten years[br]Anand said to me,

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"Lynda, I have a well here and[br]I want to cover it."

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I said, "Well I’d like to make a fountain."

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He said, "No I don’t want a fountain," that’s....

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He said, "I want a sculpture[br]to cover the well."

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I made a 15-foot trapezoid wall.

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I began drawing on this wall.

0:07:43.280,0:07:47.440
I thought I could draw an elephant[br]when I was two or three years old.

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So I began drawing an elephant,[br]never having carved a piece of this scale.

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I grew up in a brick home,[br]recycled brick.

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So when I visited here,[br]this kind of reminded me of Louisiana.

0:08:03.160,0:08:06.623
We have a semi-tropical place there.

0:08:08.120,0:08:10.080
So brick is very familiar to me.

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This particular brick is soft[br]so it was easily carvable.

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It ended up at one end being[br]very vase-like and at the other end,

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being kind of elephantine.

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When I finished,[br]rather than a fountain,

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I had a planter for a palm tree.[br]So I planted a palm tree.

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There was another image that[br]I also created after that,

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a two-headed snake.

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And I thought of it as kind of inside-out.[br]

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People began to come there and worship.

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Snakes can take on other forms.

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A snake could be a knot and[br]a knot could be the beginning of a life.

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It was a way of arriving at[br]something else other than

0:09:00.280,0:09:04.009
a wall around a tree,[br]or out into space.

0:09:07.160,0:09:09.040
A knot is sometime an implosion[br]

0:09:09.040,0:09:12.663
but a knot could also be[br]an explosion of energy.

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I have done both with[br]the idea of that form.

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It’s embryonic, it grows,[br]it comes about, it extends its arms, legs.

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The floral aspect has occurred.

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I was showing these[br]wrapped pieces of gauze.

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I was beginning to think of[br]the gauze as being the skin

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and the canvas wrapped in[br]the structure of the wire.

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And someone said,[br]they were like Kotexes.

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And I was insulted but I[br]realize they were right.

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They were long and tall.

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And for me they were[br]kind of ghost images

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and took the place of the[br]canvas and the paint.

0:10:01.640,0:10:05.000
And then I started[br]tying them in simple knots.

0:10:05.840,0:10:07.840
I was thinking of[br]organic cubism

0:10:07.840,0:10:10.560
and I wanted to create a space.

0:10:10.560,0:10:12.800
And then Stella saw[br]the "Sparkle Knots,"

0:10:12.800,0:10:16.414
he was on the panel,[br]and I got a Guggenheim for these.

0:10:38.840,0:10:43.104
When I was at the Acropolis[br]as a very little girl I remember

0:10:43.640,0:10:46.800
being totally caught up[br]with the caryatids

0:10:46.800,0:10:48.680
because they were female.

0:10:48.680,0:10:50.784
They had an ice-like quality.

0:10:52.840,0:10:55.880
When I discovered the[br]polyurethane plastic that

0:10:55.880,0:10:58.040
looked as glass,

0:10:58.040,0:11:01.800
I was very pleased that people[br]thought it was glass.

0:11:01.800,0:11:06.000
And I had an illusion of ice,[br]of frozen water

0:11:06.000,0:11:10.000
and I wanted these[br]"Graces" to be a fountain.

0:11:17.832,0:11:21.074
- We are here to take this lovely girl.

0:11:21.074,0:11:22.659
Watch what she does.

0:11:22.659,0:11:24.260
Into the box, sweetheart.

0:11:24.260,0:11:25.865
You know where your head belongs?

0:11:26.156,0:11:27.849
This way. Look at that.

0:11:27.849,0:11:29.859
Her head is here,

0:11:31.125,0:11:32.154
her feet are here.

0:11:32.154,0:11:33.381
Ladies and gentlemen,

0:11:33.381,0:11:37.827
noticing that there is not very much room [br]for the little girl to be in there.

0:11:37.827,0:11:39.033
Watch what we're doing.

0:11:39.033,0:11:41.552
Close the little box like so.

0:11:42.071,0:11:43.926
We take a solid blade.

0:11:43.926,0:11:46.669
We cut right down between the gazippy and the gazoppy.

0:11:46.669,0:11:48.291
Or we could do the other end. Doesn't matter.

0:11:48.291,0:11:50.831
And now, the other end. The gazippy and the gazoppy.

0:11:50.831,0:11:52.418
Then we take another blade,

0:11:52.418,0:11:54.060
and we go between the flippy and the floppy.

0:11:54.060,0:11:56.291
[ chuckles ] You got to know where [br]the flippy is and the floppy.

0:11:56.291,0:11:58.827
Right down there, we cut [br]off her gazoopakyper.

0:11:59.783,0:12:03.277
[ mysterious electronic music ]

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[ ANNOUNCER ] To learn more about [br]"Art in the Twenty-First Century"

0:12:57.589,0:12:59.589
and its educational resources,

0:12:59.589,0:13:04.140
please visit us online at: [br]PBS.org/Art21

0:13:07.775,0:13:11.265
“Art in the Twenty-First Century” is available on DVD.

0:13:11.659,0:13:14.267
The companion book is also available.

0:13:14.267,0:13:18.053
To order, visit us online at: shopPBS.org

0:13:18.053,0:13:23.248
or call PBS Home Video at: [br]1-800-PLAY-PBS