Zanele Muholi

For more than twenty years Muholi has studied the multifarious and ever-evolving nature of Black, queer life in South Africa, specifically through a group of projects centered around forms of portraiture both intimate and disarming, personally descriptive and socially incisive. Though widely-known and celebrated for their ongoing series of self-portraiture titled Somnyama Ngonyama (“Hail, the Dark Lioness”), which they began in 2012, Muholi had by that point either completed or begun several other bodies of work that addressed the discrete circumstances and challenges—including for basic civil rights and for visibility and recognition free from stereotypes—being faced by different members of the queer community in South Africa. These early projects, including Only Half the Picture (2002–2006), Being (2006), Beulahs (2006), Faces and Phases (2006–ongoing) and Miss Lesbian (2009), each seek to empower Muholi’s participants and by extension the queer community at large, with images defined by affirmation, dignity and joy rather than struggle, tragedy or trauma.

Zanele Muholi
Babaza I, Philadelphia, 2019
Gelatin Silver Print
27 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches
Edition of 8

© Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York

Survey

  • Somnyama III, Paris, 2014

    Gelatin Silver Print
    33 x 24 1/2 inches
    Edition of 8

  • Sebenzile, Parktown, 2016

    Gelatin Silver Print
    27 1/2 x 23 3/4 inches
    Edition of 8

  • Ntozabantu VI, Parktown, 2016

    Gelatin Silver Print
    31 1/4 x 21 inches
    Edition of 8

  • Zamile, Kwa Thema, 2016

    Gelatin Silver Print
    39 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches
    Edition of 8

Biography

Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, South Africa and currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. They studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg and in 2009 completed an MFA: Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto. Their work has been exhibited at the 2020 Biennale of Sydney; the 58th International Venice Biennale; Documenta 13; the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and the 29th São Paulo Biennale. They are currently the subject of a mid-career survey at the Instituto Moreira Salles, Sao Paolo. In 2024 they were the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in 2020, the Tate Modern mounted a major mid-career survey which traveled to Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris and Bildmuseet, Sweden.

Other notable solo exhibitions have taken place at the Tate Modern, London; Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kulturhistorek Museum, Oslo; Schwules Museum, Berlin and Brooklyn Museum, New York. They received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in 2016, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2018, and the Spectrum International Prize for Photography in 2021. Their work is included in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Brooklyn Museum; the High Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art; the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Tate Modern, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among many others.