archival digital print

Artwork date: 2009
Signature details: signed, dated, numbered 6/10 and inscribed with the title in pencil in the margin
Edition: number 6 from an edition of 10 + 3APs
Exhibited: Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg, 'Long Live the Dead Queen', 9 July to 3 August 2009, an example from the edition exhibited.; Somerset House, London, 'Mary Sibande: I Came Apart at the Seams’, 3 October 2019 to 5 January 2020, an example from the edition exhibited.; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, 'Mary Sibande: Blue Purple Red', 8 October 2021 to 2 January 2022, an example from the edition exhibited.
Literature: Brownell Mitic, G. (2019). ‘Mary Sibande re-imagines the story of South Africa's domestic workers’, CNN. Cable News Network. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/mary-sibande-sophie-sculpture/index.html (Accessed: February 21, 2023), an example from the edition illustrated.

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sheet size: 90 x 61.5 cm; framed size: 104 x 75.5 x 4 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Cape Town.

Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK:

“I use the body as an exploration of claiming identity…..[and] as a tool to express concerns in the stereotypical depiction of women, particularly black women.

The body is emphasizing the limitation that history has placed on identity. I like to tease and test the viewer’s expectations of reality in South Africa today not only by using the body as a stage or platform to play out scenes of fantasies and realities, but also by changing the viewer’s expectations”.

• Mary Sibande[1]

A seminal image from Mary Sibande’s critically acclaimed Long Live the Dead Queen (2009) series, I’m a Lady sees the artist’s alter-ego Sophie continuing her reverie of various escapist and imagined scenarios where she (rightfully) becomes anyone she aspires to be.

Here, Sophie is dressed in her signature lavish royal blue maid’s ballgown, seated with her head slightly titled and eyes closed while holding a parasol, alluding to the Victorian ideal of what it is to be a ‘lady’ – a woman who was pure, chaste, refined, and modest. An ideal that was supported by western etiquette and manners. A lady was to be properly addressed as ‘madam’.

Sibande has devoted her artistic practice to unpacking the socio-political baggage weighing down the black female body, primarily exploring the institution of the domestic servant – the image of the ‘maid’ as inspired by her family’s history of domestic labour. Acknowledging the humanity and commonality of people, the artist states: “Sophie is me. Sophie is the women in my family who were all maids, from my great-grandmother to my mother. And I felt the need to celebrate these women because they were limited as black bodies, as black female bodies.”[2]

In I’m a Lady, Sibande used masses of tulle to create Sophie’s voluptuous, over-feminised costume. The resulting image is visually striking and an apparent contradiction. While recognisably a domestic worker, Sophie’s elaborate gown and her poised demeanour complicates a reading of her as merely a servant. The extravagance of the dress would inevitably disable Sophie from easy movement, making it impossible for her to perform the work of a ‘maid’. This inability to perform such physical or household tasks, ironically, becomes a marker of status: a person dressed as such would have to be waited on, her inaction indicating her position in the social hierarchy.

Exploring the construction of identity and critiquing stereotypical depictions of black women in particular, Sibande probes power relationships between women, particularly the colonial and still prevalent relationship of the ‘maid’ and 'madam'; “Essentially, I’m looking at the historical disempowerment of black women, dealing with the section of women in society that is often off-centre stage, namely maids. My work also looks at the ideals of beauty and femininity represented by examples of privileged members of society, and the aspiration of less fortunate women to be like them.”[3]

Text by Marelize van Zyl

[1] Stielau, A. Mary Sibande. Artthrob http://artthrob.co.za/Artbio/Mary_Sibande_by_Anna_Stielau.aspx. [accessed 23 February 2023]

[2] Sauer, L (ed). (2019), Cultural Threads, Tilburg: TextielMuseum

[3] Nair, S. South African artist Mary Sibande discusses Sophie, her alter ego, published 17 October 2020. https://www.stirworld.com/see-features-south-african-artist-mary-sibande-discusses-sophie-her-alter-ego [accessed 23 February 2023]

COLLECTOR'S NOTE:

Mary Sibande was the recipient of the 2013 Standard Bank Young Artist Award. In 2011, she formed part of the group exhibition for the South African Pavilion titled Desire, Ideal Narratives in Contemporary South African Art at the 54th Venice Biennale in Italy. In 2022, Sibande presented two international solo shows; The Red Ventriloquist at MAC Lyon – Musée d’art Contemporain de Lyon in France and The Wake at the Kunstpalais, Erlangen in Germany. Her work was also showcased at the West Bund Art & Design with Bloom Galerie in Shanghai, China and at Paris Photo with Baverman Gallery in Paris, France, in 2021.

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris.