Rubber Soul, Monument of Aspiration

Artist Mary Sibande (South African, born 1982)

Date2011

Dimensionsoverall: 101 1/2 x 57 x 64 1/2 in. (257.8 x 144.8 x 163.8 cm);
base: 40 1/8 x 32 3/8 x 32 3/8 in. (101.9 x 82.2 x 82.2 cm)

MediumCast resin mannequin, cotton, tulle, rubber

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LineGift of The Georgia Welles Apollo Society

Object number

2013.160A-G

Not on View

DescriptionA black, cast resin mannequin of a woman jumping straight up with eyes closed, head bent over, and arms outstretched. The mannequin is wearing a large, decadently ruffled, Victorian style dress made of khaki colored canvas fabric with brass colored buttons. The dress is full in the back, but bunched up in the front to reveal the darker green lining underneath and the feet of the mannequin wearing white, rubber shoes. She is also wearing a white cotton headscarf knotted in the back and white apron with the apron ties hanging over the back of her dress. The entire sculpture is mounted on a black pedestal so that she appears to be jumping on top of it. A black, cast resin mannequin of a woman jumping straight up with eyes closed, head bent over, and arms outstretched. The mannequin is wearing a large, decadently ruffled, Victorian style dress made of khaki colored canvas fabric with brass colored buttons. The dress is full in the back, but bunched up in the front to reveal the darker green lining underneath and the feet of the mannequin wearing white, rubber shoes. She is also wearing a white cotton headscarf knotted in the back and white apron with the apron ties hanging over the back of her dress. The entire sculpture is mounted on a black pedestal so that she appears to be jumping on top of it. MATERIALS: Pedestal: Wood products. Armature: Painted steel. Mannequin: Resin based? Painted black. Clothing: Pirelli PZero fabric, leather shoes with tire tread bottoms, starched white linen(?) accessories, shiny brass buttons, stretchy dark synthetic fabric for underskirt (spandex?, polyester?)

Label TextMary Sibande investigates issues of race, class, power, and colonial legacies in post-apartheid South Africa. Rubber Soul, Monument of Aspiration is the last in a series depicting Sibande’s alter-ego Sophie, who is represented in Sibande’s image. Sophie honors the generations of women in the artist’s mother’s family forced into domestic work. Her voluminous dress is one of Victorian Madame or even royalty. In Sibande’s words, she “completely reanimates Sophie’s history through how her body is adorned and the way she occupies these narratives that were stolen and denied from her.” Though often wearing the blue and white associated with domestic workers in South Africa’s apartheid state, here Sophie wears a dress of khaki-colored fabric. The material and the handmade white shoes are associated with the characteristic dress of male members of South Africa’s Zion Christian Church, one of the largest and fastest-growing churches throughout southern Africa, with origins in the anti-apartheid movement. Sibande explains, “Sophie is not only breaking set gender boundaries by wearing these shoes but also in the action she is performing, known as 'jumping’. 'Jumping' is a praise action, again only performed by men." Moreover, Sophie is jumping onto a pedestal on her way to monumental status as this work directly challenges religious and gender norms, while asserting the power of self-fashioned identity.Exhibition HistoryJohannesburg, Gallery Momo booth, FNB Joburg Art Fair 2011, 2011.

Hague, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Rainbow Nation: Contemporary Sculpture from South Africa, May 29-Sept. 30, 2012.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Body in Color, March 20, 2018-July 22, 2018.