Mary Sibande

Sibande was born in Barberton in apartheid South Africa and was raised by her grandmother.[3] Her mother was a domestic worker herself, and her father was in the South African Army. She did not know her father when she was younger but got to know him when she was a teenager.[3] Because her mother was a domestic worker she pays homage to domestic workers with her artworks. Artworks such as the ones from her exhibit, "Long Live the Dead Queen".[4] Sibande would describe her childhood as being perfect; she states that "‘I had everything I needed, and I went to a good high school which was multiracial. Many families couldn’t afford to send their kids there but I was fortunate that my mum was able to. I guess that also pushed me in a certain direction."[3]

Sibande received her diploma in Fine Arts from the Technikon Witwatersrand in 2004. She obtained a B-tech degree from the University of Johannesburg in 2007.[2][5][3] At first Sibande wanted to be a fashion designer and art was more of an afterthought. Her aspirations of being a fashion designer are still prominent throughout all of her works. The usage of fashion and design are all over and displayed beautifully throughout every single one of her sculptures. In 2001, Sibande moved in with her mother to Johannesburg where she was studied at Witwatersrand Technikon.[3]

Sibande has used her work to expose many different things, from postcolonial South Africa to stereotypes of women as well as stereotypes regarding black women in South Africa.[6] Her work contains multiple types of mediums such as sculpture, photography, design, collage, and even theatrics. 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.[7] She was the South African representative at the 45th 2011 Venice Biennale,[8] and her work Long Live the Dead Queen was found in murals all over the city of Johannesburg in 2010.[9][10] In 2016, her work The Purple Shall Govern toured South Africa.[11] Sibande has also used her artwork to focus on giving voiceless people their voice back.[12] Some have even said that her work confronts the very inkling of a disempowered African female and that her work aims to crack the morse code associated with western ideals of beauty and how they can appeal to black women.[1]

Sophie has played a large role in Sibande's work. Sophie as previously mentioned is Sibande's alter-ego, she is a domestic worker who finds peace and an escape from servitude by dreaming of emancipating herself. The character is in an imaginary and dream-like world where she is finally free.[15] Sophie's life is collected and presented through a series of human-scale sculptures, molded on Sibande herself. Sophie's working uniform is gradually transformed into the grand Victorian wear of the European elite.[1] Placing Sophie in Victorian clothing comments on the restriction of women in these large, heavy and tightened-up dresses. Her dress is a protest against being a maid, and at the same time, it is the façade that allows her fantasies to come to life. Sophie starts to take different roles throughout Sibande's work in addition to being different types of people. In each work Sophie portrays different personas, one being a Victorian queen, another being a general who leads an entire army to victory, she's also a beautiful woman going to a ball and even a pope at one point. Sophie is portrayed as a hero and a character full of strength and perseverance.[1]

Furthermore, Sibande takes Sophie into different exhibits throughout the years. She first portrays Sophie in her “Long Live the Dead Queen” exhibition from 2009 to 2013. "Long Live the Dead Queen" portray Sophie as a maid who is reclaiming who she post-colonialism. She is then brought back again in a different setting in “The Purple Shall Govern” in 2013–2017. This exhibit is when Sibande allows the "new" Sophie to come out and express herself. The exhibit takes a place of an installation which takes over the space.[16] Sophie makes a reappearance with Sibande's most current series, “I Came Apart at the Seams” which takes place from 2019 to the present.[15] Sophie is also depicted in a sculpture called Sophie/Elsie, which Sibande created in honor of her great-grandmother (a domestic worker whose masters gave her "Elsie" as a Western name).[17]

Sibande's work is held in the following permanent collections:

• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI[17][18]
• Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH[19]
• Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS[20]
• National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC[21]

• Sophie/Elsie | University of Michigan Museum of Art | Ann Arbor, Michigan | USA | 2021[17]
• I came apart at the seams | Somerset House | London, UK | 2019
• Leroy Neiman Gallery | New York City | USA | 2019
• A Crescendo of Ecstasy | The Mixed Reality Workshop (TMRW) | Johannesburg, South Africa | 2018
• A Crescendo of Ecstasy | FNB Joburg Art Fair | Sandton Convention Centre | Johannesburg, South Africa | 2018
• Right Now! | Stellenbosch University's Woordfees Festival | Stellenbosch University's Art Museum | Stellenbosch, South Africa | 2016
• The Armory Show | 92 & 94 Piers | New York City, USA | 2016
• The Purple Shall Govern | Iziko South African National Gallery | Cape Town; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa | 2014
• Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art | The Museum of Contemporary Art | Lyon, France | 2013
• The Purple Shall Govern | Grahamstown National Arts Festival | Grahamstown, South Africa | 2013
• The Purple Shall Govern | MAC/VAL Musée d’Art Contemporain di Val-de- Marne | Paris, France | 2013
• Mary Sibande and Sophie Ntombikayise Take Central Court | Central Court, Spencer Museum of Art | University of Kansas, Kansas, USA | 2012
• Long Live The Dead Queen | Inner City Johannesburg; Joburg City World Premier Annual Exhibition | Johannesburg; National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa | 2010[22]

• Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present | Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, Texas | 2020[23]
• 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (SMAC Gallery) | Somerset House, London, UK | 2019
• 14th Curitiba International Biennale of Contemporary Art | Curitiba, Brazil | 2019
• N’GOLÁ Festival of Arts, Creation, Environment and Utopias | São Tomé e Príncipe | 2019
• FNB Art Joburg (SMAC Gallery) | Sandton Convention Centre | Johannesburg, South Africa | 2019
• Ampersand Foundation Award 21 years celebration exhibition | University of Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) | Johannesburg, South Africa | 2019
• Construction of the Possible | Havana Biennale | Havana, Cuba | 2019
• Made Visible | Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity | Boston Museum of Fine Art | Boston, USA | 2019
• A New Humanity | Dak’Art: African Contemporary Art Biennale | Dakar, Senegal | 2018
• Extra/Ordinary | Plugin New Media Section | Contemporary Istanbul | Istanbul, Turkey | 2018
• The Armory Show | Piers 92 & 94 | New York City, USA | 2018
• In Their Own Form | Museum of Contemporary Photography(MoCP) | Chicago, USA | 2018
• Shifting Boundaries: A Selection of Works showcasing South African Women Artists of the Past 100 Years | Welgemeend | Cape Town, South Africa | 2018
• Not a Single Story | Nirox Foundation Sculpture Park | Krugersdorp, South Africa | 2018
• Continental Drift: Black / black Art from South Africa and North Australia | Cairns Art Gallery | Cairns, Australia | 2018
• Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now) | The Met Breuer | New York City, USA | 2018
• Cultural Threads | TextielMuseum | Tilburg, Netherlands | 2018
• Friends50 | Iziko South African National Gallery | Cape Town, South Africa | 2018
• African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection | National Museum of African Art | Smithsonian Institution | Washington, D.C, USA | 2017
• South Africa: The Art of a Nation | The British Museum | London, UK | 2017
• All things being equal | Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) | Cape Town, South Africa | 2017
• Dress Code | Gallery MOMO | Cape Town, South Africa | 2017
• 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair | Somerset House, London, UK | 2017
• The Evidence of Things Not Seen | Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) | Johannesburg, South Africa | 2017
• Another Antipodes/Urban Axis | PS Art Space | Fremantle, Australia | 2017
• Beauty and Its Beasts | Durban Art Gallery | Durban, South Africa | 2017
• Different Angels | Höhenrausch Linz | Austria | 2017[22]
• Re(as)sisting Narratives | Framer Framed | The Netherlands | 2016

• In 2017 Smithsonian National Museum of African Arts Award
• In 2014 Johannesburg Alumni Dignitas Award
• In 2013 Standard Bank Young Artist Award

She has also been a Smithsonian Fellow in Washington DC, a Ampersand Foundation Fellow in New York, and a Fellowship in the University of Michigan Fellowship. In 2018–19, Sibande was the Virginia C. Gildersleeve Professor at Barnard College.[8]