Senga Nengudi
Nengudi, circa 1980s
Born
Sue Irons

(1943-09-18) September 18, 1943
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Alma materCalifornia State University, Los Angeles,
Waseda University
Occupation(s)Artist, Sculptor, Curator, Dancer
Years active1960s–present
Known forVisual art
MovementStudio Z, Performance Art, Sculpture
SpouseElliott Fittz
AwardsNasher Prize Laureate 2023
Websitewww.sengasenga.com

Senga Nengudi (née Sue Irons; born September 18, 1943)[1] is an African-American visual artist and curator. She is best known for her abstract sculptures that combine found objects and choreographed performance. She is part of a group of African-American avant-garde artists working in New York City and Los Angeles, from the 1960s and onward.

Nengudi was named the 2023 Nasher Prize Laureate for her contribution to the discipline of sculpture.[2]

Early life and education

Nengudi was born Sue Irons in Chicago, Illinois in 1943.[1] Following the death of her father in 1949, she moved to Los Angeles and Pasadena with her mother.[3] As a result of an existing segregated school system, Nengudi found herself in between schools, transferring back and forth between Los Angeles and Pasadena. Her cousin Eileen Abdulrashid is also an artist.[4]

Following her graduation from Dorsey High School, Nengudi studied art and dance during the 1960s at California State University, Los Angeles, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1967.[5] She then spent a year studying at Waseda University in Tokyo, in the hopes of learning more about the Gutai Art Association.[6] In 1967, she returned to California State University, from which she received a Master of Arts degree in sculpture in 1971. During college, in 1965, she interned at the Watts Towers Art Center when Noah Purifoy was the director. She also worked as an art instructor at the Pasadena Art Museum and the Fine Arts Community Workshop.[4]

She moved to New York City shortly thereafter to continue her career as an artist, and she traveled back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles frequently.[4] In 2016 she received an honorary arts degree from Colorado College. She works in Colorado Springs, Colorado where she lives with her husband, Elliott Fittz.[7][8]

Career

Nengudi was part of the radical, avant-garde Black art scenes in both New York City and Los Angeles, during the 1960s and 1970s. Cheryl Banks was another artist who collaborated closely with Nengudi and with whom she corresponded frequently about their work.[9]

She worked with two galleries in particular: Pearl C. Woods Gallery in Los Angeles (owned and directed by Greg Pitts), and Just Above Midtown (JAM) in New York City. JAM was owned and directed by Linda Goode Bryant, who influenced Nengudi.[4] She has described the creative energies of working with galleries like these that were, "trying to break down the walls" for the black artist community.[4]

Studio Z collective and performance

In the late 1970s, Nengudi worked under Brockman Gallery's CETA-funded arts program, where she met Maren Hassinger. This program allowed Nengudi and Hassinger to create Ceremony for Freeway Fets, a performance with artists David Hammons, Franklin Parker and others who were part of Studio Z.[10] This collective, also known as the LA Rebellion, was comprised African American artists "distinguished by their experimental and improvisational practice."[11][9] Hammons and Hassinger became frequent collaborators with her work.[12] Other members of Studio Z included Ronn Davis,[13] Duval Lewis, RoHo, Barbara McCullough, Houston Conwill, and Joe Ray (artist).[14] In 1978, Nengudi paired with Hassinger for a performance piece in which the two artists improvised movement while entangled inside a large web of pantyhose. The performance symbolized the ways in which women are restricted by societal gender norms. Nengudi also took many staged photographs during this period. She often appeared anonymously in them herself as a genderless figure, defying definition.

Themes of work

Complicating cultural, ethnic and racial classification became as central to Nengudi's work as her handling of gender constraints. She often combines African, Asian and Native American art forms in particular for her performance pieces and staged photographs. While her oeuvre highlights issues surrounding gender, race and ethnicity, Nengudi's work focuses on the ways in which everyone is negatively affected by these systematic forces and her pieces attempt to foster cross-cultural inspiration for men and women alike.

She often cites African and Eastern philosophies as underpinning her work.

Work

R.S.V.P. series, 1975–1977

R.S.V.P. I (1977/2003) at the Museum of Modern Art in 2022

In 1975, following the birth of her son and seeing the changes in her body, Nengudi began her R.S.V.P. series (also known as repondez s’il vous plait), for which she is best known.[15][4] Combining her interest in movement and sculpture, Nengudi created abstract sculptures of everyday objects through choreographed sets which were either performed in front of a live audience or captured on camera.[16] The sculptures were made from everyday objects, like pantyhose, and parts were stretched, twisted, knotted, and filled with sand.[16] The finished sculptures, originally intended to be able to be touched by the audience, were often hung on gallery walls but stretched across gallery space, evoking the forms of bodily organs, sagging breasts, and a mother's womb.[17][9][6] For her, the use of pantyhose as a material reflected the elasticity of the human body, especially the female body.[16][18] These sculptures as well as her later performance pieces involving pantyhose expressed a mélange of sensuality, race identity, body image, and societal impacts on women's bodies.[19]

R.S.V.P. X (1976/2014) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2022

Despite having been increasingly involved in the African American artist community in Los Angeles, when the "R.S.V.P." series made its debut, there was no significant public interest in her work. One of Nengudi's close friends and one of her art collaborators, David Hammons brought forth an explanation for the public's lack of interest in Nengudi's work, ascribing it to the abstract aesthetic present in many of Nengudi's pieces throughout the 1960s and the 1970s. Furthermore, Nengudi's "R.S.V.P" sculptures differed greatly from most of the art work made popular by her artistic peers in Los Angeles and New York. Nengudi was made aware of the perception of her art by the public as it compared to artwork made by her peers, particularly in New York, where some people felt she was not making "black art."[6]

Nengudi's "R.S.V.P." sculptures have made more recent appearances in traveling group shows, including in the exhibition, Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960–1980 (from 2011–2013) and Blues for Smoke (2013).[20]

Ceremony for Freeway Fets (1978)

Nengudi and members of the Studio Z collective (including Hammons and Hassinger) performed, Ceremony for Freeway Fets (1978) under a freeway overpass on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles.[21] Nengudi designed costumes and headdresses made of pantyhose for the performers. Hammons and Hassinger played the roles of male and female spirits, with Nengudi performing as a spirit to unite the genders. Both the dance performance and soundtrack, performed by members of Studio Z, were improvised.[22]

Warp Trance (2007)

During her 2007 residency at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Nengudi incorporated video art into her practice for the first time.[23][18] During visits to textile mills around the state, she recorded video and audio footage of the textile mills in full operation, and she also collected objects, like Jacquard punch cards, which were used to program Jacquard loom machines, mechanizing textile mills. In the final installation, Nengudi projected video footage onto a vertical screen of punch cards in a space with ambient sound from the audio recordings.[23] The work explores themes of technology, the politics of labor, contemporary music, and the repetition of ritual dance.

Poetry and curation

In addition to her installations, sculpture, and performances, Nengudi also creates paintings, photography and poetry. She has also curated exhibits, including the solo show of Kira Lynn Harris at the Cue Art Foundation in New York in the spring of 2009.[24]

She writes poetry under the pseudonyms Harriet Chin, Propecia Lee, and Lily B. Moor.[9] In an interview, Nengudi explained how she decided to use these pseudonyms:

"It all started when I saw a rack of postcards with art that was incredible and very African-looking, but then when I turned over the postcard and saw that the artist was white, I thought, "What the heck?" Later I questioned why I responded that way. I thought about this issue of naming, and how we jump to conclusions based on the ethnicity of a name. Of course, if there is no name attached, then people just have to respond to the work in itself. But if it's work by someone named "Yamamoto" or "Rodriguez," there's immediately another filter that we put on to view it. The different names I use all have a personal thread related to them. I want it to be like Br'er Rabbit, trying to be the trickster, to play with things, and to make people look at things differently." --Senga Nengudi[4]

Exhibitions

Nengudi has staged a large number of solo shows at galleries and museums in the United States and internationally. Her solo shows include Senga Nengudi (1971), California State University, Los Angeles; Vestige: The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus’ S.D. (1981), Just Above Midtown Gallery, New York; Warp Trance (2007), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Senga Nengudi: Improvisational Gestures (2015-2018), originating at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Galleries of Contemporary Art; and Head Back & High: Senga Nengudi, Performance Objects (1976 – 2015) (2018), originating at the Baltimore Museum of Art.[25]

The artist has also participated in a wide array of group shows and exhibitions, including the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).[25]

Notable works in public collections

Selected publications

  • Nengudi, Senga; Fabric Workshop and Museum (2007). Senga Nengudi. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fabric Workshop and Museum.
  • Nengudi, Senga; Warehouse Gallery (2012). Senga Nengudi : lov u. Syracuse, New York: Warehouse Gallery.
  • Nengudi, Senga; Claus, Elisabeth (2012). Senga Nengudi. Aschaffenburg, Bavaria: Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg e.V. KunstLANDing.
  • Nengudi, Senga; Jones, Kellie; White Cube (2014). Senga Nengudi : alt. London, England: White Cube. ISBN 1906072876
  • Nengudi, Senga; Jones, Kellie; Luard, Honey; Feaver, Dorothy; White Cube (2014). Senga Nengudi : Alt : inside the White Cube. ISBN 9781906072872
  • Nengudi, Senga; Burnett Abrams, Nora; Auther, Elissa; Jones, Amelia; Pitts Angaza, Gregory (2015). Senga Nengudi : improvisational gestures. Denver, Colorado: Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. ISBN 9780692536254
  • Nengudi, Senga; Yasar, Begum; Bradley, Rizvana; Lévy, Dominique (2016). Senga Nengudi : [September 10 – October 24, 2015]. New York City; London, England: Dominique Lévy. ISBN 9781944379025

References

  1. 1 2 "Nengudi, Senga". ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research). Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  2. ↑ D'Souza, Aruna (September 21, 2022). "Senga Nengudi Wins the 2023 Nasher Prize for Sculpture". The New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2022. (subscription required)
  3. ↑ Senga Nengudi : September 10 – October 24, 2015. New York City: Dominique Lévy Gallery. 2015. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-944379-02-5.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Hegert, Natalie (September 28, 2016). "Repondez s'il vous plait: An Interview with Senga Nengudi". MutualARt.
  5. ↑ Cederholm, Theresa Dickason (1973). Afro-American artists: a bio-bibliographical directory. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library. pp. 139–140.
  6. 1 2 3 Taormina, Victoria Marie (June 2016). "Bodies in Action: Senga Nengudi's R.S.V.P. Répondez S'il Vous Plaît (1977/2003)" (PDF). University of California, Riverside. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Senga Nengudi Fittz - Colorado College". www.coloradocollege.edu. Retrieved July 14, 2021.
  8. ↑ "Oral history interview with Senga Nengudi, 2013 July 9-11". www.aaa.si.edu. Retrieved July 14, 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Senga Nengudi Papers, 794". Amistad Research Center. Retrieved July 14, 2021.
  10. ↑ Walker Art Center, "Individual Collective: A Conversation with Senga Nengudi," by Allie Tepper
  11. ↑ "Senga Nengudi – Art+Culture Projects". Art+Culture Projects. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  12. ↑ Doran, Anne (April 29, 2013). "Senga Nengudi at Thomas Erben (reviews)". Art in America. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
  13. ↑ Amadour (May 4, 2023). "Senga Nengudi with Amadour". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
  14. ↑ "Individual Collective: A Conversation with Senga Nengudi". walkerart.org. Retrieved April 10, 2023.
  15. ↑ Gyarkye, Lovia (November 9, 2020). "An Artist's Continuing Exploration of the Human Form". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  16. 1 2 3 Brownell, Jake. "Colorado Springs Artist Senga Nengudi Takes the World Stage at Venice Biennale". Colorado Public Radio. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
  17. ↑ "Senga Nengudi | Now Dig This! digital archive | Hammer Museum". Hammer Museum. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  18. 1 2 "The Improvised Body: The Reemergence of Senga Nengudi". Hyperallergic. September 6, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
  19. ↑ Hawbaker, KT. "Senga Nengudi stretches the limits of womanhood". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Senga Nengudi – Art in America". Art in America. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  21. ↑ Beckwith, Naomi (March 27, 2013). "A conversation with Naomi Beckwith and the artist Senga Nengudi, 'It was African and Kabuki-like at the same time'". Contemporary And (C&). Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa).
  22. ↑ Stillman, Nick. "Senga Nengudi's "Ceremony for Freeway Fets" and Other Los Angeles Collaborations". East of Borneo. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
  23. 1 2 "Senga Nengudi | Fabric Workshop and Museum". www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  24. ↑ "Kira Lynn Harris". CUE Art Foundation. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  25. ↑ "Water Composition I". DiaArt. Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  26. ↑ "Water Composition I". Guggenheim. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  27. ↑ "R.S.V.P." MOCA. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on January 24, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  28. ↑ "R.S.V.P. Fall 1976". MCA Chicago. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  29. ↑ "R.S.V.P. V". Studio Museum. Studio Museum in Harlem. April 27, 2020. Archived from the original on July 10, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  30. ↑ "R.S.V.P. X". Hirshhorn. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  31. ↑ "Swing Low". LACMA. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  32. ↑ "Untitled, Senga Nengudi". MoMA. Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on October 22, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  33. ↑ "Inside/Outside". Brooklyn Museum. Archived from the original on July 1, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  34. ↑ "Internal I". Whitney. Whitney Museum. Archived from the original on October 29, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  35. ↑ "Internal II". Tate. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  36. ↑ "Performance with "Inside/Outside"". MoMA. Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on July 9, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  37. ↑ "Performance with "Inside/Outside"". SAAM. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  38. ↑ "R.S.V.P. I". MoMA. Museum of Modern Art. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  39. ↑ "R.S.V.P. XI". CMOA. Carnegie Museum of Art. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  40. ↑ "R.S.V.P. Reverie-"B" Suite". ICA Boston. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Archived from the original on January 22, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  41. ↑ "Ceremony for Freeway Fets". MOCA. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on December 20, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  42. ↑ "RSVP Performance Piece". Centre Pompidou (in French). Archived from the original on July 23, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  43. ↑ "Revery - R". Hammer Museum. University of California, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on July 7, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  44. ↑ "R.S.V.P. Reverie "Bow Leg"". MFAH. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
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