Thousands of people got Lynda Benglis' unsolicited dick-pic.

Lynda was born in Louisiana in 1941 and attended the then women's college of Tulane University. Here she studied ceramics and painting. At the age of 24 she decided to moved to New York. While living in NYC, she befriended many now famous artists, like Eva Hesse and Andy Warhol.

Lynda has never been afraid to speak her mind. She once told David Hockney his drawings were good, but that he ought to forget about his paintings. Also, she recommended Dan Flavin, who was still making painted boxes with light-bulbs sticking out, that maybe he could lose the boxes. He listened to her and did so and hit it big. After some time, Lynda wanted to study some more and attended the Brooklyn Museum of Art school. Here she met her first husband Gordon Hart, but apparently she only married him to help him avoid the draft. Eventually she did find her true love, Anand Sarabhai, while on a trip to India.

At first, Lynda was famous for pouring latex or polyurethane foam onto the floor. She was the first artist ever to make sculptures out of paint, kind of like giant patches of rainbow vomit. Later on she made similar sculptures but casted them in metal. Yet the art world continued ignored her innovative works. I mean, she was no Sol LeWitt or Donald Judd, so what was she thinking? Obviously, that made her furious, so she decided to confront the the male-run artistic community.

Before she did the thing, her mom told her, “They’ll remember you for this.” And oh boy, did they! As an act of protest Lynda spent $3000 on a two-page spread in an edition of Artforum (a renowned magazine on contemporary art) to advertise her upcoming exhibition. The photograph she used was so “extremely vulgar” and “brutal”, five editors published a letter, publicly disassociating themselves from the issue. Guess you’re curious what kind of photo it was right? Well Lynda shot a selfie posing fully nude, oiled up...with a giant dildo. That’s a pretty awesome move in my book, but I’m guessing a lot of men suffered from severe penis anxiety. They even blamed Lynda for ridiculing the penis. Because that’s what feminism is all about right? People mainly criticized her for shameless self promotion, conveniently forgetting all about Andy Warhol, king of shameless self-promotion and the many, many entitled male artists that preceded him.

After this, the art world was torn between loving her or hating her, but it wasn't just the art world. Because of Lynda, schools pulled their Artforum subscriptions. Also, during one of her shows in Philadelphia, a man knocked over one of her works while waving his copy of the famous Artforum issue.

Haters aside, it's safe to say Lynda is my kind of woman.