Mary Sibande (b. 1982, Barberton, South Africa) is a Johannesburg-based multimedia artist whose work addresses the intersection of race, class and gender in post-apartheid South Africa. A Crescendo of Ecstasy (2018) is an immersive virtual reality installation featuring 360-degree cinematic video, sound, masks molded from the artist’s face, and hanging organic creatures. The experience transports viewers to an alternate land inhabited by Sibande’s alter ego “Sophie,” who imagines a fantastical world, unbounded by the history of female servitude.

Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present is made possible through the generosity of the Moody Center for the Arts Founder’s Circle and the Moody Foundation. Exhibition designed by Carlos Jiménez