Penny Siopis. Tinta

The Museu Tàpies in Barcelona presents an exhibition by Penny Siopis, an artist who lives and works in South Africa, spanning painting, drawing and film, with her series Shame at its centre.

The exhibition brings together the career of Penny Siopis, who lives and works in South Africa and explores the relationship between personal memory and collective memory. Her themes include the struggle against apartheid and the repressive policies of the settlers towards the indigenous population. Her practice moves between painting, drawing and film, combining the intimate with the historical and the symbolic with the political.

The core of the exhibition is Shame, a substantial body of works in which shrunken or diluted bodies make up a universe where shame serves as a narrative and emotional thread. The pieces trace a history of humanity marked by humiliation and violence, but also by the possibility of recognition and catharsis. Alongside it is Charmed Lives, a large canvas of found objects that works as collective memory woven from individual experiences.

The archive also occupies a central place in the artist's work, with cabinets of sealed drawers that evoke a memory concealed by hegemonic discourses. The exhibition, curated by Imma Prieto, director of the Museu Tàpies, is the first time Siopis's work has been presented in Barcelona, and it interweaves the memories of the north and the south.