Senga Nengudi’s performance and sculptural work explores the limitations of the body. In her sculptures, Nengudi utilizes panty hoes are her central medium. Resembling flesh, the nylon mesh also serves as a stereotypically femme/queer fabric/clothing. Typically hung or pinned on a wall, the pantyhose are stretched to their limits; one of the central themes in Nengudi’s work is the elasticity of the body. Nengudi combines sculpture and performance; she often dances with and in her sculptures, using the elasticity as a means of balance and constriction. Because of the ways in which her work is displayed, Nengudi is also dissecting themes of disembodiment; the sculptures resemble body parts and flesh, but they are dismembered, as if a body was once there and is now skinned and butchered. Nengudi, through her work, undertones the violence, trauma and labor that femme/queer/black bodies endure.
