Mary Sibande was born in Barbeton, South Africa, in 1982. She currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sibande obtained an Honours degree from the University of Johannesburg in 2007 following a Diploma in Fine Arts from the Witwatersrand Technical College in Johannesburg in 2004. Notable awards include the 2017 Smithsonian National Museum of African Arts Award; the University of Johannesburg Alumni Dignitas Award in 2014 and the 2013 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts. Sibande is also the recipient of several residencies, fellowships, and tenures, including the 2018-2019 Virginia C. Gildersleeve Professorship at Barnard College at Columbia University in New York, USA; the MAC/VAL Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in Paris, France in 2013; the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (SARF) in Washington, D.C, USA in 2011 and the Cite des Arts International Residency in Paris, France in 2006.
Sibande has exhibited her work extensively within curated group shows and biennales including: Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present at Moody Centre for the Arts, Rice University in Houston, USA in 2020; Open Borders, the 14th Curitiba Biennale in Curitiba, Brazil; Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity at the Boston Museum of Fine Art; as well as Construction of the Possible, the Havana Biennale in Havana, Cuba, all in 2019; The Red Hour, Dak’Art: African Contemporary Art Biennale in Dakar, Senegal; African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C, USA in 2017; the Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, France in 2013 and Desire, Narratives in Contemporary South African Art at the 54th Venice Biennale, as part of the South African Pavilion in Venice, Italy in 2011.
In 2021, a solo exhibition of Sibande’s works will be presented by the Musée d’art Contemporain de Lyon in Lyon. Earlier solo exhibitions include I came apart at the seams, at Somerset House in London, UK and Mary Sibande at the Leroy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University in New York City, USA, both in 2019; The Purple Shall Govern, a travelling exhibition presented at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in Makhanda (formerly known as Grahamstown) in 2013, the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town in 2014, the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg in 2014 (all in South Africa) and the Musée Léon Dierx in Saint Denis, Reunion Island in 2014; Long Live the Dead Queen at the Musée d’Art Contemporain di Val-de-Marne in Paris, France in 2013; Mary Sibande and Sophie Ntombikayise Take Central Court at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, USA in 2012.
Sources:
- Tyilo, m. Maveric Life. Iconic South African Works: Mary Sibande’s ‘The Reign’. 2021. [O]. Available: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-06-22-iconic-south-african-works-mary-sibandes-the-reign/Accessed: 2021/08/06.
- Bidouzo-Coudray, J. The Guardian. Mary Sibande – poking at power relations in post-apartheid South Africa. 2014. [O]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/mary-sibande-south-africa-art/Accessed: 2020/08/06.
- South African History Online. Mary Sibande. 2020. [O]. Available: https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mary-sibande/Accessed: 2021/08/06.
- Shraddha, N. Stir World. South African artist Mary Sibande discusses Sophie, her alter ego. 2020. [O]. Available: https://www.stirworld.com/see-features-south-african-artist-mary-sibande-discusses-sophie-her-alter-ego/Accessed: 2021/08/06.
