Strauss & co - 16 February 2019, Cape Town

84 65 Tracey Rose SOUTH AFRICAN 1974– MAQEII 2002 inscribed with the artist’s name, title, date, medium, dimensions and ‘edition of 6’ on a Goodman Gallery label adhered to the reverse Lambda photograph image size: 118,5 by 118,5 cm R100 000 – 150 000 EXHIBITED Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Tracey Rose: Ciao Bella, 6 April 2002. Gallery in the Round, Grahamstown, Tracey Rose: Ciao Bella, 2004. Johannesburg Art Gallery, Making Waves, November 2004 to March 2005. National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, Making Waves: A selection of works from the SABC Art Collection, 2006. Another example from the edition is illustrated in colour in the exhibition catalogue. ITEM NOTES Tracy Rose’s video work Ciao Bella (2001), created for the 49 th Venice Biennale, reimagines the Last Supper with the 13 original roles cast as female – all portrayed by Rose herself. Along with the work, she created photographic portraits of these 13 characters that ‘serve to introduce the audience to a series of feminine archetypes, refracted versions of womanhood that range from the coquettish Lolita to the oppressed object of wonder Saartjie Baartman, the self-neutered nun, and the ever-reliable mother figure standing at the gates to her Parktown mansion, among others.’ 1 The present lot, MAQEII , depicts Rose as the former French monarch Marie Antoinette standing with chocolate cake in hand – a reference to her rumoured response of ‘let them eat cake’ upon hearing that her peasant subjects were starving – in front of an RDP settlement; a metaphor for inequality and social injustice in South Africa. 1. Sean O’Toole. (2002) Tracey Rose – ‘Ciao Bella’ at the Goodman Gallery, ArtThrob, (56), April, [Online] Available: https://artthrob. co.za/02apr/reviews/goodman.html [2018, December 7].