Mary Sibande

Mary Sibande (born 1982) is a South African artist who lives and works in Johannesburg.[1] Her work explores themes of gender, class, and race, through the sculptural representation of her alter ego, Sophie, who is dressed in altered domestic worker uniforms.[2][3] This work is often seen as autobiographical and draws from the history of four generations of women in her family.[4] Her work has been exhibited in the South African pavilion at the 2010 Venice Biennale, and her work "Long Live the Dead Queen" was found in murals all over the city of Johannesburg in 2010.[5][6] In 2013 Sibande received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award and her work "The Purple Shall Govern" toured South Africa.[7]

Career

Sibande was born in post-apartheid South Africa, from a long line of domestic workers. She earned a National Diploma in Fine Arts at the Witwatersrand Technical College in 2004 and a Fine Art B-Tech degree from the University of Johannesburg in 2007.

Sibande’s painting and sculpture uses the human form to explore the construction of identity in a postcolonial South African context, but also attempts to critique stereotypical depictions of women, particularly black women.[8]

The body, for Sibande, and particularly the skin, and clothing is the site where history is contested and where fantasies play out.[9] Centrally, she looks at the generational disempowerment of black women and in this sense her work is informed by postcolonial theory. In her work, the domestic setting acts as a stage where historical psycho-dramas play out.

Sibande’s work also highlights how privileged ideals of beauty and femininity aspired to by black women discipline their body through rituals of imitation and reproduction. She inverts the social power indexed by pseudo-Victorian costumes by reconfiguring it as a domestic worker’s “uniform” problematizing the colonial relationship between “slave” and “master” in a post-apartheid context.[3] The textiles used to produce uniforms for domestic workers is strongly associated with domestic spaces in South Africa, and by applying it to Victorian dress she attempts to make a comment about history of servitude as it relates to the present in terms of domestic relationships.

Collections

References

  1. ↑ Alexandra Dodd, "Dressed to thrill: the Victorian postmodern and counter-archival imaginings in the work of Mary Sibande", Critical Arts, 24.3 (November 2010): p. 467.
  2. ↑ http://search.proquest.com/docview/431146792
  3. 1 2 Bidouzo-Coudray, Joyce (2014-01-07). "Mary Sibande – poking at power relations in post-apartheid South Africa". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  4. ↑ Away, The Woman Who Rode; says, Other Stories. "MARY SIBANDE: dressed to tell South Africa's tale". Artventures: meet the artists. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  5. ↑ "South Africa", La Biennale.
  6. ↑ http://www.contemporaryand.com/blog/person/mary-sibande/
  7. ↑ "Mary Sibande by Anna Stielau | Artthrob". artthrob.co.za. Retrieved 2016-03-20.
  8. ↑ "Mary Sibande". www.gallerymomo.com. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  9. ↑ Krouse, Matthew. "Mary Sibande: The purple shall reign at Grahamstown's arts fest". The M&G Online. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  10. ↑ "Artwork of the Week: September 13". The Toledo Museum of Art. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  11. ↑ "Sophie-Ntombikayise by Mary Sibande | Recent Acquisitions | Collection | Spencer Museum of Art". Spencer Museum of Art. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
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