There's Something I Must Tell You by Sue Williamson (with Penny Siopis)

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"The sweep of it, seeing all those years, is quite extraordinary for an artist."

Internationally renowned South African artist Penny Siopis sits down with Sue Williamson for a wide-ranging conversation on her new book There's Something I Must Tell You, published to accompany her landmark retrospective at the Iziko South African National Gallery. The exhibition filled eight rooms and the atrium, and traced nearly fifty years of practice. Together they walk through what it means to see a lifetime of work hung together, from the earliest district-six work of the early 1980s through the apartheid years, the TRC-era Truth Games, reflections on colonialism, and intergenerational conversations between the mothers of the Mandela generation and their granddaughters.

Sue Williamson's new book is There's Something I Must Tell You, a beautifully illustrated catalogue of her 2025 retrospective at the Iziko South African National Gallery, featuring essays by Sean O'Toole, Zoé Whitley and Sixolise Sigolo.

Sue Williamson is one of South Africa's most esteemed artists, internationally renowned for her work. She lives and works in Cape Town. Her 1989 book Resistance Art in South Africa was the first to document the role of South African artists in the struggle against apartheid.

Penny Siopis is a South African artist based in Cape Town and one of the country's most important contemporary voices.
5 Oct English South Africa Books · Society & Culture

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