28th Oct, 2018 8:30
Historic, Modern and Contemporary Art
72
Penny Siopis (South Africa 1953-)
Tapers
oil and candles on canvas
Artwork date: 1982
Exhibited: Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Penny Siopis: Time and Again, December 2014.
Literature: Smith, K. ‘Penny Siopis’ in Sophie Perryer. (ed.) (2004). 10 Years, 100 Artists: Art in a Democratic South Africa. Cape Town, Bell-Roberts Publishing, p.346.; Smith, K. (ed.) (2005). Penny Siopis. Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery, colour illustration on p.14.; Viljoen, G. (ed.) (2014). Penny Siopis: Time and Again. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, colour illustration on p79.
Sold for R512,100
Estimated at R400,000 - R600,000
oil and candles on canvas
Artwork date: 1982
Exhibited: Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Penny Siopis: Time and Again, December 2014.
Literature: Smith, K. ‘Penny Siopis’ in Sophie Perryer. (ed.) (2004). 10 Years, 100 Artists: Art in a Democratic South Africa. Cape Town, Bell-Roberts Publishing, p.346.; Smith, K. (ed.) (2005). Penny Siopis. Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery, colour illustration on p.14.; Viljoen, G. (ed.) (2014). Penny Siopis: Time and Again. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, colour illustration on p79.
(1)
99 x 99 cm
Notes:
Tapers (1982) offers multiple insights into the work of one of South Africa’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Penny Siopis. In a review of the artist’s 2009 Paintings exhibition,
Marilyn Martin, former Director of Iziko South African National Gallery, observed how the artist’s ‘career reveals extraordinary shifts and changes, but leitmotifs have presented
themselves since the beginning: allegory, ritual, sexuality, vulnerability, estrangement and the uncanny’,1 many aspects of which are present in this significant early work. Siopis’s cake paintings are amongst her most sought-after works, conjuring images of the family bakery in Vryburg in the Northern Cape that was so integral to her primal memories and
formative years.
Isolated on a veridian field, the columnar pedestal with its angled table top and tapers redolent of offering, becomes an iconic statement. Tapers, common to both celebratory and religious activities, and lit in votive rituals or for prayers of intercession, emerge from crumbling cakes. As luscious in their subject as in their materiality, the alluring associations of cake with sexuality and seduction are inescapable. Abundance swiftly shifts into acquisitive excess – the indulgence and decadence prescient of the crumbling of an
old order in the 1980s. In her remarkable painting, Siopis brings together ethics and aesthetics to raise questions about South African society. The question remains: ‘Can one have one’s cake and eat it?’
Emma Bedford
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Auction: Historic, Modern and Contemporary Art, 28th Oct, 2018
Aspire Art Auctions brought a significant double-header of top lot leads to this sale.
Stellar results were achieved for internationally prominent William Kentridge and Alexis Preller, one of South Africa’s most respected and collectable modern artists. Collectors were attracted to Kentridge’s remarkable, Drawing from Stereoscope (Double page, Soho in two rooms) (1999), which sold for R6 600 400, while Preller’s Adam (1972), sold for a world record at R9 104 000. Modern offerings also included works by Peter Clarke, Kenneth Bakker, and Douglas Portway, while the contemporary segment included Moshekwa Langa, Penny Siopis, Simon Stone, Clive van den Berg, and Georgina Gratrix, amongst others.
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