We are pleased to present a collection of printed work by South African artist Mary Sibande, a David Krut Workshop (DKW) collaborator since 2023.
These works explore the politics of leisure, depicting the figure of Sophie, a character based on the artist herself and women in her family. Thus far she has tended to appear in photographic works or life-size in sculpted form, and we are privileged to be collaborators for Sibande’s first time depicting her in print. To date we have completed two series with the artist the “Leisurely” Series, three woodcut prints completed between 2024 and 2025, and “A View Through the Peephole,” a series of eight monotypes completed in 2026. In each of these works, Sophie enjoys creative pastimes and symbols of luxury long denied to Black women under apartheid.
For Sibande and for her audience, Sophie represents aspirational bravery and a vehicle for addressing historical injustice and the variety of personal and political reactions to it. Sophie, who has in turn embodied rage, political action, and quiet remembrance, now appears at her most content, playfully refusing historical boundaries that restricted her access to leisure and self-determination. These works propose rest and imagination not as indulgences, but as radical acts of presence, assertions of the right simply to be.
Though Sophie’s dress is based on that of a domestic worker, her clothing in these images is notably far more ornate, with a Victorian flair drawn from the artist’s interest in fashion history. In these works, Sibande embarks on a mission to right historical wrongs: albeit retroactively and vicariously, she provides luxury and leisure activities to a stand-in for her own female role models — the very activities that figures like her mother and grandmother described in wishes and dreams to a young Sibande. The simple, dreamlike compositions allow us to peep into Sophie’s imaginary world, a world the artist is claiming for herself and her family.
Mary Sibande (b. 1982) is a South African visual artist working across a variety of mediums, including sculpture, photography and printmaking. Her work primarily explores methods to reclaim the Black female body in post-colonial and post-apartheid South Africa.
She has received residencies and awards across Africa, Europe, and America, including being named the Artist-in-residence at Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas (2025, 2023), a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government (2024), and Virginia C. Gildersleeve Professor at Barnard College at Columbia University in New York (2018-2019) and the MAC/ VAL Musée d’Art Contemporain du Valde-Marne in Paris, France in 2013. She won the Helgaard Steyn Prize for Sculpture (2021); the Smithsonian National Museum of African Arts Award (2017); and the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts (2013).
Selected solo exhibitions of her work include Let me tell you about Red…, Durban Art Gallery, Durban, South Africa (2022); The Red Ventriloquist, Musée d’art Contemporain de Lyon (MAC Lyon), France (2022); Mary Sibande: Blue, Red, Purple, Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, USA (2021); Unhand Me, Demon!, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL, USA (2021); Sophie/Elsie, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, USA (2021); Lahore Biennale, Lahore, Pakistan (2020); I came apart at the seams, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (SMAC Gallery), Somerset House, London, UK (2019); Leroy Neiman Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2019); The Armory Show (Gallery MOMO), New York, NY, USA (2018); A Crescendo of Ecstasy, FNB Joburg Art Fair (The Mixed Reality Workshop [TMRW], in collaboration with Eden Labs, Keyes Art Mile), Johannesburg, South Africa (2018); Right Now!, Woordfees Festival, Stellenbosch University Art Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa (2016); The Armory Show (Gallery MOMO), New York, NY, USA (2016); The Purple Shall Govern, Musée Léon-Dierx, Saint-Denis, Reunion Island, France (2014); Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, France (2013); Mary Sibande and Sophie Ntombikayise Take Central Court, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA (2013); The Purple Shall Govern, MAC/VAL, Viry-sur-Seine, Paris, France, IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, North-West University Gallery, Potchefstroom, South Africa, Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa (2013); and Sibande on Campus: Mary Sibande Installation/New Work, Institute for the Humanities Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA (2013).
Sibande’s works are included in institutional collections internationally, including the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI, USA; Davison Art Collection, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA; Fonds Régionaux d’art Contemporain (FRAC), Marseille, France; Frank and Lizelle Kilbourn Collection, Cape Town, South Africa; Iziko South Africa National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), South Africa; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA; Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, USA; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, USA; Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA; SASOL Contemporary Art Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa; Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town, South Africa; Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, USA; Standard Bank, Johannesburg, South Africa; Toledo Museum of Art, OH, USA; UNISA Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA, USA; and Zeitz MOCCA, Cape Town, South Africa.
Along with artist Lawrence Lemaoana, Sibande is co-founder of Occupying the Gallery, a project that supports emerging artists by transforming gallery spaces into makeshift open studios for mentorship and artistic development.
