Senga Nengudi: Topologies

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is the only East Coast venue for a major traveling exhibition devoted to Senga Nengudi, a leading figure of the 1970s Black American avant-garde and a pioneering artist of our time. Marked by her innovative use of everyday materials that range from water and sand to pantyhose and air conditioning units, Nengudi’s work bridges the mediums of sculpture and performance, offering a cross-disciplinary investigation into the personal experiences of the Black female body and the collective practices of community and ritual. Senga Nengudi: Topologies traces the expansive range of the artist’s career and context from the 1970s to today through a combination of more than 70 artworks, including sculptures, environmental installations, and archival documentation. Shown together, they affirm Nengudi’s pivotal role in redefining the possibilities of sculpture and abstraction and exemplify the continuing vitality and urgency of her practice. 

Chronicling the entire arc of Nengudi’s oeuvre, Topologies begins with a gallery dedicated to one of the artist’s earliest immersive installations. Titled Black and Red Ensemble, this work is on view for the first time since 1971. The exhibition also features Nengudi’s rarely exhibited Water Compositions, an in-depth presentation of the artist’s iconic R.S.V.P. sculptures made of sand-filled pantyhose, and documentation of the artist’s collaborative and performance-based works from her time spent working between New York and Los Angeles. In addition to presenting Nengudi’s own work, Topologies also features individual works by Nengudi’s contemporaries and long-time collaborators to honor the ways in which these artists and their creative outputs were intimately connected and intertwined. The Philadelphia presentation also focuses in greater depth on Nengudi’s work in recent decades, including her experiments with spray paint and dry cleaner’s plastic from the 1990s, her ephemeral sand installations, and the artist’s first video installation, which she produced when she was an artist-in-residence at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia in 2007. Standing as one of the most expansive exhibitions of the artist’s work to date, Topologies captures the range of Nengudi’s explorations in material and subject, in art and in life. As the artist has stated, “My art responds to being Black, being a woman, and being of a certain age. The artworks you’ll see on display represent someone who has had children, cared for her mother, and experienced many of the things life has to offer.”

Organized by the Lenbachhaus Munich in cooperation with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Organizing Curator is Stephanie Weber, Curator for Contemporary Art, Lenbachhaus Munich. In Philadelphia, the exhibition is curated by Amanda Sroka, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, with support from Alexis Assam, Constance E. Clayton Fellow.