The Unseen, Inside Out: The Life and Art of Senga Nengudi

O. DONALD ODITA Chicago to live in California. They moved several times between Los Angeles and Pasadena during her childhood. In 1961, she enrolled at Pasadena City College. A semester later she studied at the California ~ Vniversity at Los Angeles where she completed her undergraduate degree (Art major, Dance minor) and began her graduate studies in Sculpture. Aesthetic curiosity led her to Japan in 1966 where she spent a year between her undergraduate and graduate studies enrolled in a foreign studies program at Weseda University, Tokyo. The artist's principle motivation to go to Japan was to gain a better understanding of and exposure to Eastern ways of life, and to seek out Japanese 'fhe Unseen, Inside Out: Ttie Life and Art of Senga Nengudi yo write about the work of Senga Nengudi is to bear witn to an artist who moves beyond the conventions ofart making while embodying the freeing power of spirit and change. For twentyfive years, Senga Nengudi has made work that tran 'Selfimportance and ego by allowing it to speak freely and of its own accord. Part ofthis process involves the artist looking into herself to gather energies for the purpose ofsharing openlywith others. As she says, her artworks exist on a temporal plane where one can "have some sense of being able to go on - to be able to know a direction."1 Senga Nengudi was born, Sue Irons on September 18, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of seven, she and her mother left Opposite: Performance Piece 1977, Nylon mesh and Maren Hassinger, courtesy: Thomas Erben Gallery New York. Below: R.5. V.P. VI, 1976, Nylon mesh and sand, courtesy: Thomas Erben Gallery New York. born in 1974, and Oji born in 1979. Pregnancy and its accompanying changes had a profound effect to the degree that it inspired her to construct a conceptualmaterial manifestation of these bodily transformations. The nylon mesh pieces are reflective of her idea of the changing body and corresponding mental states asking how much stretching a body/form can endure and how much resilience is left after the pulling and tension cease. They also make a historical note ofthe female body as an indentured servant taking on duties and responsibilities forced upon it.6 These ideas of stretching and servitude are brought to painful extremes in Inside/Outside, 1977, and Rapunzel,1980. Inside/Outside appears twisted out as nylon mesh is weighed down with sand to create a visual rhythm of swinging pendulous forms suggestive of exposed internal organs. The artist's spontaneous performance piece, Rapunzel, made in Central Los Angeles, gains its title from that fairy tale in which the princess is asked by her lover to let down her braided hair so he can clin1b up to save her - claim herJ From 1978 throughout the 80's, Senga Nengudi expressed herself through performance art both spontaneous and crafted. Most often collaborating with the artists Maren Hassinger, Ulysses Jenkins, Franklin Parker, Houston Conwill, as well as David· Hammons, dancer Cheryl Banks and composer /musician Butch Morris. In late 1989, she and her family moved from Los Angeles to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Always committed to art education, she put her focus on community related art programs. This allowed her to reevaluate her relation the legendary Just Above Midtown gallery, where the artist had her first solo show, "RSVP," in 1977, exhibiting the pantyhose pieces. Although the material nature of her work is important, Senga Nengudi has stated many times that the use of time resistant materials has not been of great importance to her: I have fought the joy of creating impermanent objects most of my life. An artist's supposed greatest desire is the making ofobjects that will last lifetimes for posterity after all. This has never been a priority for me. My purpose is to create an experience that will vibrate with the connecting thread.s For the artist, this "connecting thread" ties her work to a reality beyond time and space. It also embodies her AfricanAmerican experience where through the use of readily available materials she is able to express a tradition motivated by the impulse of "keeping on." The "found" in Senga Nengudi's...