65 x 20 cm
Sculptor and video artist Lynda Benglis has long employed feminist concerns, often provocatively so. Masturbation (1974) consists of a circular (feminine) wax and resin disk, suspended, face-down, 20 cm over a corresponding circular mirror placed face-up on the ground. The image, viewable only in (partial) reflection, strongly evokes those private places of the female body seen in the most intimate encounters or through a gynaecological speculum.
Benglis originally crafted the wax and resin circle on a stone wall, part of which remains on the back, giving the impression that it was forcibly wrenched from its source. This gesture is also an inverted reference to the photograph published in the November 1974 Art Forum, advertising her exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery. The artist, shown in the photograph, is proudly naked, tall, taut of body, her eyes behind sunglasses, grasping a huge dildo at her crotch. When asked about contemporary art concerns of the 1970s, Benglis cited feminism and the connection between Masturbation and the legendary Art Forum photograph, and how both these gestures ― the one introverted, the other extroverted ― focused on the previously unexplored topic of female self-gratification.