Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: Senga Nengudi blurs the lines between sculpture and installation in her 1970 work "Water Composition I," re-created in 2019. This liminality is perhaps echoed in its location, hung about 5 feet high against the gallery wall with portions of the sculpture hanging onto the floor and extending out around 6 feet. It’s a form that’s organic while also geometric, as if someone was slumped against the wall, their limbs splayed out around them, or a spider whose body is flattened into the corner where the wall and floor meet.

The work is created using three long, tubelike, clear vinyl bags partially filled with water with food coloring in glowing, gemlike tones. The central portion of each bag is hanging from above, emptying its center as the water pools to both ends. The water is contained by heat-sealed seams around each bag’s edges—one end tapers to a thin point, creating a conical shape, while the other is a squared end like a pillow.

The bags are hung over a thick natural rope, which causes the lift at their centers. This rope is attached to the gallery wall at two horizontal points about 5 feet high from the ground and 3 feet apart. Each point is a support around which the rope is knotted. The rope droops down between the point about two-thirds of the way down to the floor, and the vinyl bags hang across this center drape. The ends of the rope hang down on either side of the support knots. The overall effect of the rope is an “M” shape with the water sculpture pooling down from the center, as if it has melted onto the floor.

The conical ends of the bags rest along the floor and point away from the wall, spaced several feet apart and fanning out like the colored rays of a star. The three conical shapes are filled with clear, pink, and yellow-orange water. The three square ends of the bags sit beneath and behind the conical forms in a pile near the wall, filled with red, orange, and clear water. In some of the water sculptures tiny bubbles are visible, like effervescence in a carbonated beverage.

Structured yet ephemeral, the sculpture maintains a shape that could easily change when manipulated, the water seemingly light and flexible in the transparent vinyl bags. Yet the bags also evoke heaviness, dragging down the length of rope that supports them.

Inspired by Japanese avant-garde, Nengudi focuses on interaction with materials. How would this feel if we could touch it, manipulate the bags, and move them?

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