Senga Nengudi

Senga Nengudi

Senga Nengudi

Though Senga Nengudi’s R.S.V.P. is abstract, its forms suggest a body or body parts—limbs, breasts, buttocks, appendages, wombs. Store-bought nylon pantyhose filled with sand, knotted, stretched, and tacked to the wall mimic the elasticity of skin, tender at life’s beginnings and then sagging with age and strain. The cultural associations of the hosiery and its color identify the body alluded to as black and feminine. Yet the body in question also belongs to viewers: the title of the work, a commonly used French acronym, entreats viewers to “please respond.”

In 1975, following the birth of her son and seeing the changes in her body, Nengudi began her "répondez s'il vous plait" (RSVP) series 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.[7][4] For her, the use of pantyhose as a material reflected the elasticity of the human body, especially the female body.[8] These sculptures as well as her later performance pieces involving pantyhose expressed a mélange of sensuality, race identify, body image, and societal impacts on women's bodies.[9]

R.S.V.P

"bodies can’t be reduced to forms nor defined by singular characteristics. Tights can be slipped off but skins can’t and bodies are inseparable from the thinking, feeling people that inhabit them."

"Because there was always an issue about money, my concept was I could take a whole show and put it in my purse. I could take it out […] and hang it up and there you are [...] I liked this idea that a woman’s life is in her purse.’"