As part of the sale devoted to Modern and Contemporary African Art on Wednesday 24 June 2020, PIASA in partnership with the South African auction house Aspire Auction, is excited to present a work by South African artist Mary Sibande.
Born in 1982 in Johannesburg, Mary Sibande studied visual arts at the University of Johannesburg until 2007. She is the author of a work in which the social considerations of the postcolonial context remain very present. Through painting and sculpture, the artist uses the human body to evoke the construction of identity but also to denounce the stereotypes of black women, deeply rooted in the imagination.
Daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of domestic workers, Mary Sibande is frequently inspired by the history of her family.
For several years, her work has revolved exclusively around a representation of a woman named Sophie, the archetypal black maid during apartheid. Sophie's life is shown through a series of human-scale sculptures, moulded on Sibanda itself.
ƒ Mary Sibande (born in 1982, South Africa)
Her Majesty, Queen Sophie, 2010
Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper
Signed, dated and numbered A/P in pencil along the bottom margin
110 x 80 cm (sheet)
Provenance : Gallery Momo, Johannesburg
Her Majesty, Queen Sophie, the work offered for sale on Wednesday 24 June 2020 by PIASA was created in 2010. A similar piece was presented in the permanent collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Her work was presented in the contemporary art gallery Momo, by Monna Mokoena, located in Johannesburg, during the 2010 edition of the Venice Biennale and again, in 2017, during the 1:54 fair in London.
As a sign of the fame that the South African artist has acquired in recent years, the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon will devote its first retrospective in France to him from September to December 2020.
