Lynda Benglis and Sam Gilliam, early practitioners at Tandem, are well known for their work toward redefining modernist abstraction. In the late 1960s Benglis, a feminist artist, created pours, acid-hued liquid rubber that congealed on floors or slumped in corners. Around the same time, Black artist and civil rights activist, Sam Gilliam, was developing his drape paintings, stained raw canvas suspended from the ceiling. These immersive works, like Benglis’s pours, depended on gravity as the architecture of the space determined the undulating shapes. From the margins of the art world, Benglis and Gilliam reconceived entirely the notion of painterly abstraction, rejecting the conventions of easel painting in favor of letting the world back in. Two of the earliest artists to work at Tandem, Benglis and Gilliam set the foundation for our continued commitment to collaboration in the form of the innovative and the unexpected.

Opening reception: Saturday, November 23, 10am-2pm during our Holiday Open House.