SUSAN INGLETT GALLERY AND SPECIFIC OBJECT are pleased to present a selection of work by Yayoi Kusama, Lynda Benglis, and Beverly Semmes at the 2023 Independent Art Fair, on view from 11 – 14 May 2023 at 6 St. Johns Lane, NYC, NY 10013.
A joint presentation by Susan Inglett Gallery and Specific Object will showcase a range of media interventions addressing and reclaiming sexuality by Yayoi Kusama, Lynda Benglis, and Beverly Semmes. Increasingly aware of the limitations of the art-world press in the 1960s, Kusama infiltrated the territory of men’s magazines, using them as a vehicle to document her New York happenings and events. These periodicals will be shown with a set of previously unseen color photographs and associated ephemera. Benglis financed the full page spread featuring her infamous nude self-portrait in the November 1974 issue of Artforum by selling a run of hand-painted t-shirts, examples of which will appear at Independent together with her iconic “centerfold.” The presentation concludes with works on paper from Semmes’ Feminist Responsibility Project, initiated in the early 2000s, in which the artist conceals and complicates pornographic images culled from vintage issues of Hustler and Penthouse, forcing us to re-examine the conventions of the genre.
