RSVP Untitled, 1978

Nylon mesh and sand
© Senga Nengudi; courtesy the artist, Sprüth Magers and Thomas Erben Gallery, New York. Photo by Ian Reeves.

Part of a generation of artists who emerged during the turbulent decade of the 1960s, Senga Nengudi has been challenging the boundaries between sculpture and performance art for over five decades. In 1974, inspired by her pregnancy and the elasticity of women’s bodies, Nengudi began to experiment with used pantyhose. She suspended pairs from the ceiling, stretched them between walls, filled them with sand to allow gravity to exert its force, and pulled them tightly over objects. Round, heavy forms, such as those in R.S.V.P. Untitled, evoke breasts and testicles, while the nylon material itself—ubiquitous and universally understood—references women’s bodies in a uniquely personal way. The impermanence of Nengudi’s fragile objects was an important reference point for performance art as it developed during the 1970s.