Penny Siopis
Siopis was born in 1953 in Vryburg, South Africa, and lives in Cape Town. She has an MFA and an Honorary Doctorate from Rhodes University, and is currently an Honorary Professor at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Her work since the early 1980s has encompassed painting, film/video, photography and installation. All her explorations, whether with body politics, memory, migration, or the relations between the human and non-human, are characterised by her interest in what she calls the ‘poetics of vulnerability’ – embodied in the dynamic play between materiality and reference, chance and contingency, form and formlessness, personal and collective history.
Solo exhibitions include Moving Stories and Travelling Rhythms: Penny Siopis and the many journeys of Skokiaan, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo (2019); This is a True Story: Six Films (1997-2017), a retrospective of her film works at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2018); Incarnations at the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius (2016); Penny Siopis: Films at the Erg Gallery, Brussels (2016); Time and Again: A Retrospective Exhibition at the South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2014), and Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg (2015); Obscure White Messenger at Brandts Museum, Odense, Denmark (2014); Red: The iconography of colour in the work of Penny Siopis at the KZNSA Gallery, Durban (2009); Three Essays on Shame at the Freud Museum, London (2005); and seven solo exhibitions at Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (2007-2019).
Siopis has participated in group exhibitions at Tate Modern and the British Museum, London; Kunsthaus Dresden; Beirut Art Centre, Lebanon; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Jeu de Paume and La Maison Rouge, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki; The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany; and the Hood Museum, New Hampshire, among other institutions; and the biennales of New Orleans, Venice, Taipei, Sydney, Johannesburg, Gwangju, Guangzhou and Havana. Her work is represented in major public collections in South Africa; international collections include the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Tate, London.
Solo Exhibitions:
2019 Moving Stories and Travelling Rhythms: Penny Siopis and the many journeys of Skokiaan, The National Gallery of Zimbabwe in
Bulawayo
Warm Water Imaginaries, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2018 This is a True Story: Six Films (1997 - 2017), Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Restless Republic, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Penny Siopis: Films, Erg Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Incarnations, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
2015 Still and Moving, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Time and Again: A Retrospective Exhibition, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014 Penny Siopis: Obscure White Messenger, Brandts Museum, Odense, Denmark
Time and Again: A Retrospective Exhibition, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Who’s Afraid of the Crowd? Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Furies, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Red: The Iconography of Colour in the Work of Penny Siopis, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
Paintings, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 Lasso, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2005 On Stains, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Three Essays on Shame, the Freud Museum, London, UK
Passions and Panics, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2003 Shame, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Kappatos Gallery,
Athens, Greece
2002 Sympathetic Magic, Gertrude Posel Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,South Africa
The Archive, Tropen Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Pinky Pinky and other Xeni, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2000 Zombie, Invited Artist, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
Flesh Colour, Gasworks Artists’ Studios, London, UK
1998 Charmed Lives, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1994 Private Views, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1990 History Paintings, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Invited Artist, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
1987 Pictures Within Pictures, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1983 Recent Work, Market Theatre Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1982 Cakes, NSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
1980 Hiscock Gallery, Portsmouth, England
1979 British Council Centre, London, UK
1978 Hellenic Centre, Port Elizabeth, South Africa Collector's Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Selected group exhibitions
2019 Trans World, Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest, Romania; Los Angeles, California
2018 About Face, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Hacer Noche (Crossing Night), Oaxaca, Mexico
Both, and, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, USA
To see this story better, close your eyes, The Glasgow School of Art, Scotland
2017 The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, Prospect.4 Biennial, New Orleans, USA
The New Parthenon, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
A Painting Today, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future: A new lexicon for the biennial,10th Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine
Arts Museum, Taiwan
South Africa: The Art of a Nation, British Museum, London, UK
I Love You Sugar Kane, ICA Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
Air: Inspiration-Expiration, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
The Quiet Violence of Dreams, Stevenson Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
Home Truths, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 After Eden/Après Eden - The Walther Collection, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
Boundary Objects, Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany
The Film Will Always Be You: South African Artists On Screen, Tate Modern, London, UK
16th Dresdner Schmalfilmtage Film Festival, Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany
Angels with Dirty Faces, Galerie Les Filles De Calvaire, Paris, France
Unfinished Conversations, Beirut Art Centre, Lebanon
2014 Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
Chroma, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Parle pour toi: reprises, montages, histoires, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, France
Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts,San Francisco, USA
Ngezinyawo: Migrant Journeys, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Between the Lines, Former Tagesspiegel Building, Berlin, Germany; Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Imaginary Fact: South African art and the archive, South African Pavillion, 55th
Venice Biennale, Italy
Possessions (film programme), Jeu de Paume, Paris, France
Suspicious Mind: Artists’ exploration of mind and matter, Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Fiction as Fiction (Or, A Ninth Johannesburg Biennale) , Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Trade Routes Over Time,
Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Not My War, Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Prism: Drawing from 1990-2011, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway
The New Worlds and the Old I: Traffic of Legends, Khiasma, Les Lilas, Paris, France
Mine - A selection of films by SA artists, Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre; University of Johannesburg Art Gallery,
South Africa
Subject as Matter, The New Church, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 What we talk about when we talk about love, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Neither Man Nor Stone, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Hantologie des colonies (film screening), École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts, Paris, France
Water, the [Delicate] Thread of Life, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Appropriated Landscapes, Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany
Space, Ritual, Absence: Liminality in South African visual art, FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Mine - A selection of films by SA artists, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth, Germany
2010 PEEKABOO - Current South Africa, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
This is Our Time, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
The Beauty of Distance: Songs of survival in a precarious age, 7th Biennale of Sydney, Australia
Wild is the Wind, Savannah College of Art and Design, Gutstein Gallery Savannah, Georgia, USA
In Other Words, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Self/Not-self, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
Test Patterns: Recent video work from South Africa, San Francisco Camerawork, San Francisco,USA
For your eyes only, Den Hvide Kodby, Copenhagen, Denmark
2008 Disguise: The Art of Attracting and Deflecting Attention, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Make Art/Stop Aids, Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Black Womanhood: Images, Icons and Ideologies of the African Body, Hood Museum, New Hampshire; Davis Museum,
Wellesley, Massachusetts; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, USA
Personal Poetics, 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, China
2007 Desirealities, L'oeil en cascade, Paris, France
Apartheid: the South African Mirror, Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Spain
Afterlife, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Bound, Tate Gallery, Liverpool, England
About Beauty, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Cape '07, International Biennale, Cape Town, South Africa
Impossible Monsters, Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa
Lift Off II, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2006 Figuring Faith: Images of Belief in Africa, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Second to None: South African Women Artists, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Migrations, Belfast Exposed, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Women: Photography and New Media, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
2005 Crusaid; Art for AIDS, Royal College of Art, London, UK
Etchings, Print Center of New York, USA
Out of Place, FLAC, Centrum voor Kunsten en Kultuur in Gent, Belgium
Heimat als Idee/Homeland as Idea, Basis Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany
2004 New Identities: Contemporary South African Art, Museum Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Art from Greece, Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Arco, Madrid, Spain
Art Athina, International Art Fair, Athens, Greece
The ID of South African Artists, Fortis Circustheater, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Art Unlimited, MCH Messe, Basel, Switzerland
Mine(d)fields, Kunsthaus, Basel, Switzerland
Staged Realties Family Ties, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Resistance, Reconciliation, Reconstruction, MTN Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Democracy and Change, Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees, Oudtshoorn, South Africa
2003 Group Portrait South Africa, Tropen Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Kwere-Kwere: Journeys into Strangeness, Arti et Amiciitiae, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Literally and Figuratively, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2002 Once Were Painters, Klein Karoo Nationale Kunsfees, Oudtshoorn, South Africa
AIDS and South Africa: The Social Expression of a Pandemic, Davis Museum and Cultural Centre,
Wellesley College, Boston, USA
2001 Africas: The Artist and the City, Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Arte, Barcelona, Spain
Sample EP: art of the Eastern Cape, Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2000 Kwere-Kwere: Journeys into Strangeness, Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town; Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, South
Africa
Secure the Future: Artworks for AIDS, XIII International AIDS conference, Durban, South Africa; Harvard AIDS Institute, Boston,
USA
1999 Le Mémoire, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy
Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Museum for African Art, New York; Austin
Museum of Art, Texas; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University; Palo Alto, California; University of Arizona Gallery, Tucson, USA
Truth Veils, Gertrude Posel gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Lines of Sight: Perspectives in South African Photography, South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Bamako Festival of
Photography, Mali
1998 Discoveries and Collaborations: 7th International Festival of Photography, Fotofest, Houston, USA
Bringing Up Baby: Artists Survey the Reproductive Body, Standard Bank National Arts Festival,
Grahamstown; Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Democracy's Images: Photography and visual art after apartheid, BildMuseet, Umea, Sweden
Eye Africa: Photography of a Continent, Grande Palais, Paris, France; Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa
Holdings: Refiguring the Archive, Graduate School of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa
1997 Contemporary Art From South Africa, The National Touring Exhibitions, Oslo, Norway
Individual and Memory, 6th Havana International Biennial, Havana, Cuba
Alternating Currents, 2nd Johannesburg International Biennale, Electric Workshop,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Lift Off, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1996 Gay Rights, Rites, Rewrites, Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Earth and Everything: Recent Art from South Africa, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Simunye: Ten South African Artists, Adelson Galleries, New York, USA
Faultlines: Enquiries into Truth and Reconciliation, The Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa
Don't Mess with Mr In-between: 15 Artists from South Africa, Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal
1995 Black Looks White Myths, Museum Africa, Africus – 1st Johannesburg International Biennale
Taking Liberties - The Body Politic, Wits Galleries, Africus – 1st Johannesburg International Biennale
Vita Art Now, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Objects of Defiance / Spaces of Contemplation, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Panoramas of Passage; Changing landscapes of South Africa, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South
Africa; Meridian Center, Washington DC, USA
Siyawela: Love, Loss and Liberation in Art from South Africa, City Museum and Art Galleries, Birmingham, UK
Mayibuye Africa, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK
Eight from South Africa, Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Beyond Borders, 1st Gwanju Biennale, South Korea
On the Road: Works by 10 Southern African Artists, Delfina Studio Trust, London, UK
Panoramas of Passage: Changing Landscapes of South Africa, National Arts Festival,
Grahamstown; Meridian Center, Washington DC, USA
1994 'Trackings' - History as Memory, Document, Object, Art First Gallery, London, UK
Displacements: South African Works on Paper, 1984-1994, Block Gallery, Evanston, USA
Art, Society, Reflection, 5th Havana International Biennale, Cuba
1993 "Incroci Del Sud" Affinities: Contemporary South African Art, XLV Venice Biennale, Palazzo
Giustinian Lolin, Fondazione Levi, Venice, Italy; Sala 1 Gallery, Rome, Italy; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Absent Bodies/Present Lives, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds, England
Southern Cross: Contemporary South African Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1992 Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France; Alliance Française Gallery, Durban, South Africa
1991 Vita Art Now, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Cape Town Triennial, Iziko South African National Gallery
Pictures as History, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Albany Museum, Grahamstown; Standard Bank Gallery,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Painted People, Painted Space: Works from South Africa, Zaire, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Newtown Gallery, Johannesburg,
South Africa
1990 Art From South Africa, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK
South African Women’s Mail Art, SOHO 20 Gallery, New York, USA
1989 The Portsmouth Collection, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK
1988 Detainees Parent Support Committee Exhibition (DPSC), Market Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Vita Art Now, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Cape Town Triennial, Iziko South African National Gallery
1987 Culture in Another South Africa, CASA Foundation and the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Oosterkerk, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1986 Volkskas Atelier Award Exhibition, South African Association of Arts, Pretoria
1985 Tributaries, Africana Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
Women Artists in South Africa, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Tactile – An Exhibition for the Blind and Partially Sighted, Durban Art Museum, South Africa
Cape Town Triennial, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
1984 Inaugural Exhibition, South African Association of Arts, Pretoria
1983 Natal Lecturers Exhibition, Studio Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Works on Paper, Jack Heath Gallery, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg
1982 Cape Town Triennial, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
1977 With Gillian Maylam and Rose Hogge, Settler’s Museum, Grahamstown.
Awards:
2016 Arts & Culture Trust Lifetime Achievement Award, South Africa
2015 Helgaard Steyn Prize, South Africa
2002 Klein Karoo Nationale Kunsfees: Best Visual Artist Award, South Africa
1995 Vita Art Now, Quarterly Award Winner, South Africa
1991 Vita Art Now, Special Merit Award, South Africa
1988 Vita Art Now, Quarterly Award Winner, South Africa
Vita Art Now, Merit Award, South Africa
1986 Volkskas Atelier Award, South Africa
1985 Cape Town Triennial, Merit Award, South Africa
Fellowships & Residencies
2017 Open Studio/Open Form, The Maitland Institute, Cape Town
2008 Athens School of Arts: Visiting artist residency, Delphi, Greece
2006 Ampersand Foundation Fellowship Residency, New York, USA
2001 Alexander S Onassis Foundation Fellowship, Greece
2000 Swedish Exchange Fellowship, Umea University, Umea, Sweden
Gasworks Studios, London, UK
Artist in residence awarded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture & Education in association with the Tropen Museum / Royal Tropical
Institute of the Netherlands and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunste, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1998 Civitella Ranieri Foundation International Fellowship, Umbria, Italy
1995 Delfina Studio Trust Residency, for africa95 Festival, London, UK
1992 Artist in residence, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
Visiting Research Fellowship, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
University Council Overseas Fellowship, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
1986 Cité Internationale des Arts residency, Paris, France
1978 British Council Scholarship for Overseas Study, South Africa
Collections
21c Museum, USA
Afrox, Johannesburg, South Africa
Anglo American Corporation, Johannesburg, South Africa
BHP Billiton, Australia
Chase Manhattan Bank Art Collection, New York, USA
Constitutional Court of South Africa, Johannesburg
Durban Art Museum, South Africa
Durban University of Technology, South Africa
Gencor, Johannesburg, South Africa
Gordon Schachat Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, University of the Free State, South Africa
MTN, South Africa
Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden
Nedcor, Johannesburg, South Africa
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum of Art, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
The New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
Peter Stuyvesant Collection, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Pretoria Art Museum, South Africa
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Sandton Civic Gallery Collection, housed at Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Sasol Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC, USA
South African Broadcasting Corporation, Johannesburg, South Africa
Standard Bank, Johannesburg, South Africa
Trust Bank, Johannesburg, South Africa
University of South Africa, Pretoria
The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany
William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley, South Africa
Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISER), Johannesburg, South Africa
World Bank, Washington, DC, USA
Publications
Monographs:
2019 Material Acts. Texts by Sean O’Toole and Penny Siopis. Cape Town: Stevenson
2014 Olivier, Gerrit (ed), Time and Again. Johannesburg: Wits University Press
2011 Who’s Afraid of the Crowd?. Interview with Kim Miller. Catalogue 57. Cape Town: Stevenson.ISSUU
2009 Paintings. Catalogue 42. Cape Town: Stevenson
2007 Lasso . Catalogue 30. Cape Town: Michael Stevenson
Maart, Brenton, (ed). Red: The Iconography of Colour in the Work of Penny Siopis. Durban: KZNSA Gallery
2005 Smith, Kathryn (ed). Penny Siopis. Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery.
2002 Penny Siopis: Sympathetic Magic. Text by Jennifer Law. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand
Books and Exhibition Catalogues:
2014 Hertz, Betti-Sue. Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, San Francisco:Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
2013 Gutberlet, Marie-Hélène, (ed). The Space between Us. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag
Maart, Brenton. Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African art and the archive. Grahamstown:National Arts Festival
Between the Lines, University of Cape Town: Michaelis Galleries. PDF
2012 Trade Routes Revisited. Catalogue 68. Cape Town: Stevenson. ISSUU
Jantjes, Gavin. Prisme: Drawing from 1990 to 2012. Oslo: Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst
Rankin-Smith, Fiona. Figuring Faith: Images of Belief in Africa. South Africa: Fourthwall Books
Siopis, Penny. ‘The Hooks of History – Three films’. In Shoe Shop edited by Marie - Hélène Gutberlet and Cara Snyman.
Johannesburg: Jacana Media
2011 Angelucci, Federica and Sophie Perryer (eds). What we talk about when we talk about love. Text by Federica Angelucci.
Catalogue 61. Cape Town: Stevenson. ISSUU
Diserens, Corinne. Appropriated Landscapes: Contemporary African photography from the Walther Collection. Gottingen: Steidl
Mbembe, Achille and Penny Siopis. 'Good Faith: Achille Mbembe and Penny Siopis in conversation'. In Figuring Faith: Images of
belief in Africa, edited by Fiona Rankin-Smith. Johannesburg: Fourthwall Books
Richards, Colin. 'In Human History: Pasts and prospects in South African art today'. In Visual Century: South African Art from
1906-2006 Volume 4, edited by Mario Pisarra, Thembinkosi Goniwe and Mandisi Majavu. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
46 – 73
Williamson, Sue. South African Art Now. New York: HarperCollins
2010 This Is Our Time. Catalogue 51. Cape Town: Stevenson
Elliott, David. The Beauty of Distance: Songs of survival in a precarious age. Sydney: 17th Biennale of Sydney
Farrell, Laurie-Ann (ed). Wild is the Wind. Savanna: Savannah College of Art and Design
Schmahmann, Brenda. 'Bodily Issues as Subject Matter: Abjection in the Works of Penny Siopis and Berni Searle'. In
Expressions of the Body: Representations in African text and image, edited by Charlotte Baker. Oxford: Peter Lang. 97 – 120
Puse, Erja, et al. Peekaboo - Current South Africa. Helsinki: Helsinki Art Museum Tennis Palace
Siopis, Penny. 'Shame in the House of Freud'. In On Making: Integrating approaches to practiceled research in art and design,
edited by Leora Farber. Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. 237 – 246
Willis, Deborah, (ed). Black Venus 2010: They called her ‘hottentot’. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
2009 Nuttall, Sarah. Entanglement: Literary and cultural reflections on post-apartheid. Johannesburg: Wits University Press
Enwezor, Okwui and Chika Okeke-Agulu (eds). Contemporary African Art since 1980. Bologna: Damani
2008 Bunn, David. 'Art Johannesburg and its Objects'. In Johannesburg: The elusive metropolis, edited by Sarah Nuttall and Achille
Mbembe. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 137 - 169
Collins, Judith. Sculpture Today. New York: Phaidon
Bosland, Joost and Sophie Perryer. Disguise: The art of attracting and deflecting attention.
Catalogue 35. Cape Town: Michael Stevenson
Pajaczkowska, Claire and Ivan Ward. Shame and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis and visual culture.
London: Routledge
Richards, Colin. 'Aftermath: Value and Violence in Contemporary South African Art'. In Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity,
postmodernity, contemporaneity, edited by Terry Smith, Okwui Enwezor and Nancy Condee. Durham: Duke University Press.
250 – 289
Thompson, Barbara. Black Womanhood: Images, Icons and Ideologies of the African Body.
Hanover: Hood Museum and University of Washington
2007 Bester, Rory (ed). Figure/Ground: Reflections on the South African Reserve Bank art collection. Johannesburg: South African
Reserve Bank
Suberos, Pep. Apartheid: The South African Mirror. Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
Afterlife. Catalogue 26. Cape Town: Michael Stevenson
2005 Schmahmann, Brenda. 'Representing Resistance: Female Bodies in the Art of Penny Siopis'. In Between Union and Liberation:
Women Artists in South Africa 1910-1994, edited by Marion Arnold and Brenda Schmahmann. Aldershot: Ashgate. 196 – 221
2004 Golinski, Hans-Gunter. New Identities: Contemporary South African Art. Bochum: Museum Bochum
Perryer, Sophie (ed). 10 years 100 artists: Art in a democratic South Africa. Cape Town: Struik Publishers
Schmahmann, Brenda. Through the Looking Glass: Representations of Self by South African Women Artists. Johannesburg:
David Krut
Williamson, Sue; Perryer, Sophie and Sean O'Toole. ArtThrob 1998-2003:Contemporary Art in South Africa. Cape Town: Double
Storey
2003 Coombes, Annie E. History after Apartheid: Visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa. Durham: Duke
University Press; Johannesburg: Wits University Press Faber, Paul (ed).
Group Portrait South Africa: Nine family histories. Amsterdam: Tropenmuseum; Cape Town: Kwela Books
2002 Taylor, Jane. 'Holdings: Refiguring the Archive'. In Refiguring the Archive, edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, Michèle
Pickover et al. Cape Town: David Philip; Dordrecht: Kluver Academic Publishers. 243 - 281
Van den Berg, Clive. KKNK 2002. Oudtshoorn: Sasol
2001 Grundlingh, Kathy. Lines of Sight: Perspectives on South African photography. Cape Town: South African National Gallery
Stainer, Emily. Art's Journey. Johannesburg: MTN and Wits Art Galleries
Suberos, Pep (ed). Africas: The artist and the city: A journey and an exhibition. Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de
Barcelona
Smith, Kathryn. 'Body: Rest and motion'. In KKNK. Oudtshoorn: Sasol. 45 – 50
2000 Oguibe, Olu and Okwui Enwezor (eds). Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace. London: Iniva
and MIT Press
Law, Jennifer and John Picton (eds). Cross-currents: Contemporary art practice in South Africa. Somerset: Milfield Atkinson
Gallery
1999 Atkinson, Brenda and Candice Breitz (eds). Grey Areas: Representation, identity and politics in Contemporary South African Art.
Johannesburg: Chalkham Hill Press
Bossé, Laurence; Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn and Hans Ulrich Obrist (eds). Le Mémoire-99. Rome: L'Académie de France à
Rome, Villa Médici
Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield. Contemporary African Art. London and New York: Thames and Hudson
Herreman, Frank, and Mark D'Amato (eds). Liberated Voices: Contemporary art from South Africa. London and New York:
Museum for African Art; Munich, London and Munich: Prestel.
Law, Jennifer. 'The Story Teller: Penny Siopis'. In Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa, edited by Frank
Herreman. New York: Museum of African Art; Munich, London and New York: Prestel. 93 – 109
Law, Jennifer. 'The Treachery of Images: Photomontage and the ‘new’ surrealism in South Africa’. In Encounters with
Photography: Photographing people in Southern Africa, 1860-1999 (conference proceedings), edited by Patricia Davison and
Michael Godby. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. 137 – 147
Richards, Colin. 'The Wake of Words: A Response to My Lovely Day'. In Penny Siopis: My Lovely Day. Johannesburg: The
Artists Press
1998 Kurgan, Terry (ed). Bringing up Baby: Artists survey the reproductive body. Cape Town: Bringing up Baby Project
Law, Jennifer. 'Genealogy and the Artist's Archive: Strategies of autobiography and documentation in the work of a South African
artist'. In Rethinking Age in Africa: Colonial, postcolonial and contemporary interpretations of cultural representations, edited by
Mario I Aguilar. Trenton: Africa World Press. 227 – 266
Lundström, Jan-Erik. Democracy's Images: Art and photography after apartheid. Umeå: BildMuseet
1997 Enwezor, Okwui (ed). Trade Routes: Johannesburg Biennale 1997. Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing
Geers, Kendell (ed). Contemporary South African Art: The Gencor Collection. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball
Hassan, Salah M. Gendered Visions: The art of contemporary Africana women artists. Trenton: Africa World Press
Hobbs, Philippa and Elizabeth Rankin. Printmaking in a Transforming South Africa. Cape Town: David Philip
Hope, Marith (ed). Contemporary Art from South Africa. Oslo: Riksutstillinger
Williamson, Sue and Ashraf Jamal. The Future Present: Art in South Africa. Cape Town: David Philip
1996 Rosengarten, Ruth. Don't Mess with Mister Inbetween: 15 Artists from South Africa. Lisbon: Culturgest
Arnold, Marion. Women and Art in South Africa. New York: St Martin's Press
1995 Beyond the Borders. Korea: Kwangju International Biennale
Powell, Ivor. On the Road: 10 Artists from Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery and Africa 95
1994 Richards, Colin. 'For Want of an Other World'. In Penny Siopis: Private Views. Johannesburg: The Artists Press. 1 – 16
1993 Berman, Esmé. Painting in South Africa. Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers
1992 Rankin, Elizabeth. The Baby and the Bathwater: Motif, medium and meaning in the work of Penelope Siopis. Johannesburg:
Standard Bank National Arts Festival
Wilson, Joy, dir. Resistance Art in South Africa. Television documentary. Penguin Films
1990 Elliot, David (ed). Art from South Africa. Oxford: Museum for Modern Art
1989 Williamson, Sue. Resistance Art in South Africa. Cape Town: David Philip
1986 Richards, Colin. 'Excess as Transgression: Reducing Surface to Depth in the Still-life Paintings of Penny Siopis'. In Proceedings:
Third conference of the South African Association of Art Historians. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand. 72 – 80