Something You Bump Into…

Abstract

Following the observation that 1968is a myth gathering together all sorts of interpretations and, in retrospect, even distorting them in part historically, the article attempts to describe the changes in the (queer) feminist reception of the sculptural objects of Louise Bourgeois and Lynda Benglis since the 1960s. A special critical focus is on the art-historical concept of so-called Post-Minimalism, which was coined in 1971 by Robert Pincus-Witten, and its connection with the formless.Post-Minimalism is commonly dated in art history to the late 1960s, although many earlier examples can be cited. In addition, the notions of a new kind of haptic sensibility, re-evaluated by curator Lucy Lippard with her 1966 exhibition Eccentric Abstractionand the prominently discussed idea of sexual liberation by Marcuse and its significance for the reception of the works of Bourgeois and Benglis, will be highlighted. It's obvious that 1968 is not as 68, Post-Minimalism not as postas it may seem.