Lynda Benglis

Part of the artist’s Sparkle Knot series from the early 1970s, Zita presents a rough bow-like shape adorned in glitter and bright acrylic paints. By incorporating materials and techniques more common in hobby-associated crafts, artist Lynda Benglis challenged the prevailing critical bias towards the raw materials and basic geometric forms employed by her male contemporaries.

At a showing of Zita and other Sparkle Knot sculptures at New York’s Clocktower Gallery in 1973, Benglis hung the works with strings of Christmas lights, further underscoring both their rough-hewn and ornamental qualities.