Senga Nengudi

Radically expanding our understanding of Senga Nengudi’s art, this book publishes never-before-seen drawings, prints, photographs, performance scores and poetry, spanning five decades of her practice.

When Senga Nengudi’s sculptural installation RSVP debuted at Just Above Midtown in 1977, the works quickly became icons of the Black Arts movement. During her career spanning five decades, Nengudi has realised a remarkable body of work that blurs the boundaries between sculpture and performance, fine art and ritual, individual authorship and collective energy. Made of everyday materials, Nengudi’s installations are at once proxies for bodies and sites for performance. Characteristic of her openness to multiplicity, the artist, born Sue Ellen Irons, has assumed pseudonyms that inflect her creative identities as sculptor (Senga Nengudi), painter (Harriet Chin), photographer (Propecia Leigh), and writer (Lily Bea Moor). The publication is devoted to all of her creative identities.