About Artwork

In 1975, artist Senga Nengudi began her R.S.V.P. series of sculptures. Using everyday materials such as pantyhose and sand, the artist stretches, pulls, and twists these familiar items into distended proportions that are highly evocative of the human body. With R.S.V.P. Reverie – Embrace , her first bronze, she brings to life an intimate gesture out of forlorn objects like a metal stand and nylon. Entwining them, she transforms them from utilitarian to unexpectedly elegant. By casting these delicate materials in bronze the sculpture encapsulates the central ideas of Nengudi’s practice: to reference the body while also demonstrating remarkable tensions between elasticity and durability; motion and stillness; and strength and delicacy.