Senga Nengudi

Senga Nengudi (née Sue Irons; born September 18, 1943) is an African-American visual artist and curator.

She is best known for her abstract sculptures that combine found objects and choreographed performance.

Nengudi was born Sue Irons in Chicago, Illinois in 1943.

Following the death of her father in 1949, she moved to Los Angeles and Pasadena with her mother.

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.

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.

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.

She then spent a year studying at Waseda University in Tokyo, in the hopes of learning more about the Gutai Art Association.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 1967, she returned to California State University, from which she received a Master of Arts degree in sculpture in 1971.

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. This collective, also known as the LA Rebellion, was comprised African American artists "distinguished by their experimental and improvisational practice."

Hammons and Hassinger became frequent collaborators with her work.

Other members of Studio Z included Ronn Davis, Duval Lewis, RoHo, Barbara McCullough, Houston Conwill, and Joe Ray (artist).

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.

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.

The sculptures were made from everyday objects, like pantyhose, and parts were stretched, twisted, knotted, and filled with sand.

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.

For her, the use of pantyhose as a material reflected the elasticity of the human body, especially the female body.

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.

Despite having been increasingly involved in the African American artist community in Los Angeles, when the "R.S.V.P."

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.

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.

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.