
The show curated by Elissa Auther and Nora Burnett, following a traditional setting, starts with an informative wall text about the artist and her work accompanied by a few black and white photographs documenting the artist's interaction with her sculptures made of pantyhose. A number of her iconic sculptures fill the second floor of the venue, lined up along the walls. The spotlights in the dark space allow a play between the pieces made of "stretched, pulled , twisted" nylon tights and their shadows. Nengudi is well known for her use of the tan colored medium with sand-filled feet to support the final shape. The RSVP series, an ongoing project started in 1975, is well represented with eight pieces made in 2014. Their message about stretching body and psyche is consistent while Blossom, 2014, created specifically for the exhibition seems somewhat clichéd. Rubber Maid, 2011 and Swing Low, 1976/2014, allude to female shapes with sagging breasts.

The exhibition provides an in-depth review of the work of the multidisciplinary artist who started her career as a dancer. Incorporating dance, music, visual art, she evokes life impermanence, female identity, rituals, through gestures, movement, activating her sculptures during improvised performances. Her RSVP series ( Répondez S'il Vous Plaît) translates into "Please Respond", a direct call to the viewer to become engaged and interact with the works. At first, attracted by the sculptures, I found them static and mute, like frozen lifeless shapes. The display emphasizes their aesthetic qualities, but renders them shallow and irrelevant as the artist's message gets lost,... until one reaches the videos and photographs of her performances. Hypnotized and entranced, I spent a long time watching the videos made during her residency. The Threader becomes a mythical story about a textile worker repeating the same gestures in harmony with the machine to create perfect patterns for eternity. Warp Dance gives life to mechanized looms dancing in cadence and changing colors according to a perpetual cycle. Nengudi's art is dynamic, performative, improvisional, and becomes stale in the museum's context. It brings up the challenge of representing performative art inspired by and created for a community within the walls of an institution.
The "first museum survey" of Senga Nengudi's sculptures comes short of its promises: "the works invite viewers to not only respond but to engage with them physically". At the end of the visit, I felt like a spectator.
R.S.V.P. sculptures activated by the artist and Maren Hassinger, 1977
Rapunzel, 1980/2014
R.S.V.P Reverie 'D', 2014
2 comments:
I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it Smile I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
Commercial AV System Los Angeles & Commercial Audio Video Installation Los Angeles & Commercial Projector Installation Los Angeles
Contents of this website are good and appreciative
Commercial Projector Installation & Commercial Audio Visual Design
Post a Comment