Pulled Bodies, Fabric Spirits, and Celebration: Senga Nengudi’s Elusive Art Finds Joy in the Everyday

In 1978, Senga Nengudi, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, and other artists—all part of a loose collective known as Studio Z—descended on an area beneath a Los Angeles freeway. Typically frequented by the houseless, the city’s freeway underpasses are also normally filled with urban detritus. On that day, however, for a Nengudi-organized performance known as Ceremony for Freeway Fets, it also played host to clarinetists, drummers, flautists, dancers, and more. Hassinger, who had c