Lynda Benglis, Contraband, 1969

Lynda Benglis: My name is Lynda Benglis and the name is Contraband. I did it in 1969. 

These are ultra-violet colors. The trade name was DayGlo, and I ordered 500 pounds of the colors, and had them in my small studio and would go into larger studios and actually pigment large vats of rubber latex, and I would pour the painting on waxed linoleum and sometimes directly on the floor. The scale was dictated by the places that I actually did the work.

Narrator: Benglis grew up in Louisiana, near the Contraband bayou. She titled this work because it reminded her of toxic oil slicks on the water.

Lynda Benglis: The work itself has a certain kind of demand, it’s moving. It bespeaks of nature. 

I still think of myself as a painter for some reason. I think I'm painting with liquids but making objects that are dimensional, that have a sense of their own space, but demand some viewing in terms of walking around.