LOOKING UP

American avant-garde artist Senga Nengudi receives top billing at last

- M Z ADNAN

In 1971, the African American artist Senga Nengudi participated in a group show at the Musée Rath in Geneva, showing, for the first time, a body of work called the Water Compositions. Consisting of heat-sealed plastic filled with water that had been dyed with Easter egg colouring, the forms evoked the softness and sensuality of the body in the manner in which they undulated and responded to touch. They exemplified a series of aesthetic threads that have characterised Nengudi’s practice in the five decades since, with its investment in ritual, the female body, and performance. In her sculptures, tactile elements establish an interface between the viewer and the space, explains Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, the curator of a monographic exhibition exploring Nengudi’s work, which opened in mid-February at the Dia Beacon, a former box-printing factory-turned-museum of modern art in the Hudson Valley.