Lynda Benglis and Louise Bourgeois exhibition at Cheim & Read explores feminist sculpture circa 1970

Cheim & Read in New York City presented an exhibition pairing works by Lynda Benglis and Louise Bourgeois from June 21 to August 31, 2007. The show, located at 547 West 25th Street, highlighted formal and thematic overlaps between the two artists despite their generational differences. Bourgeois, born in 1911, drew from Surrealism and ethnographic influences, while Benglis, born in 1941, emerged from post-minimal and conceptual art movements. Key works included Benglis's "Quartered Meteor" (1969) in lead and Bourgeois's "Janus Fleuri" (1968) in bronze, both exploring themes of spillage and fluidity. The exhibition featured photographs such as Duane Michals's 1980 portrait of Bourgeois and Benglis's notorious 1974 Artforum advertisement. Critic Robert Pincus-Witten contributed a catalogue essay, noting the artists' role in resisting fundamentalism. The pairing emphasized bronze's use to monumentalize dissolute forms, with pieces like Benglis's "Come" (1974) and Bourgeois's "End of Softness" (1967) addressing sexual politics. The show underscored their shared feminist aesthetic, with Bourgeois's work often evoking primitivism and Benglis's embracing brash, Pop sensibilities.