Combining early sculptures with recent large-scale installations, this show—memorably curated by Matilde Guidelli-Guidi—helps to underline the importance and relevance of Senga Nengudi’s practice, which exudes a powerful presence within this venue. Set in the same vast building as long-term exhibits by predictably canonical figures (Judd, Serra, Smithson, et al.), Nengudi’s sculptural project exudes material and formal inventiveness, striking notes of emotional, political, and spiritual resonance—qualities frequently eschewed by her aforementioned peers.
Six elegant examples from the artist’s ongoing “Water Compositions” series, 1970–, are on hand. Ideal for Dia in terms of its rigorous, reductive elegance, the floor-bound Water Composition (green), 1969–70/2023, features a clear piece of plastic twisted into five compartments that come across as connected bodies filled with emerald-hued fluid. A strand of thick rope catches a pair of them—subtly suggesting that these vulnerable figures are being captured (and eventually separated) from their kin. Water Composition I, 1970/2019, features another fluid-filled vinyl form strung up on a wall, in this case subjected to exacting geometric treatment, resulting in baglike forms with sharp points containing red, orange, and clear liquid. These six appendages are part of a centralized—incarcerated?—creature, lying on the ground, partially prone.
While comparable in some sense to Hans Haacke’s works incorporating air and moisture (e.g., Condensation Cube, 1963–65), Nengudi’s series may be associated more broadly with post-Minimal, process-based approaches employing unconventional and often flexible materials, which often emphasize the forces of gravity (as in Robert Morris’s Untitled felt sculptures from the late 1960s). But Nengudi’s works differ partly because of their uncanny ability to signify the predicaments of people—as figures subjected to restraint, to processing, to suspension and strain. They do so with such austere means, and yet manage to set off, as Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s art does, a remarkable range of subjective associations. Nengudi’s vibrant palette—and the presence of tiny bubbles lying beneath her plastic skins—may signify signs of breath, growth, and animation, emitting a sense of hope in the face of persecution. The artist’s ability to test the technical and metaphorical boundaries of her materials is further evident in the more expansive Water Composition II, 1970/2019. A single length of vinyl zigzags between two wall-bound sections of rope, from which hang a trio of floor-bound bodies of blue fluid. A central circular form offers intriguing intricacies with its irregular, jellyfish-like edges and darkened navy perimeter with glacial, glass-like qualities, along with a wave-shaped passage of condensation. In this case, the streaked and stretched sections of vinyl between the azure pools shimmer and shine; their folds and creases may be read as being in dialogue with the drapery adorning monumental marble statuary, depicting (mostly white) bodies, historically deemed worthy of portraiture. These elements also recall Eva Hesse’s “draped” works, such as Expanded Expansion, 1969.
Nengudi’s sprawling, room-size installations here include Sandmining B, 2020, which features a floor-based, rectilinear expanse of sand, the site of much ritualized (and perhaps choreographed) mark-making: Flurries of footprints are juxtaposed with breast-like mounds topped with bright monochrome pigments, along with partially immersed sections of metal pipe with knotted lengths of nylon stockings attached to them. The fact that one can walk around the work accentuates its sacred, shrine-like aura—a piece of plumbing that rises against the wall becomes a site of ritual adornment. Multicolored bits of nylon stocking are tied to the plumbing, with pigment messily spread all around. Were these gestures meant to be reverent or rebellious? “We thank you for your guidance, for your love, for your vision of better, for your courage, for all of you whose lives were unjustly and maliciously taken before your time,” says someone on an accompanying audio track. The work, a site of ruin and trauma, is actually a stage for acts of tribute and defiance in the face of unjust inhuman pasts. Yet despite the horror, as the anonymous speaker suggests, hope will prevail.
— Dan Adler