Zanele Muholi

The Völklingen Ironworks flooded in red light
Copyright: Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze

born 1957 in Ghana
lives and works in London, Great Britain and Accra, Ghana

Web presence

Instagram:  Zanele Muholi (@muholizanele) • Instagram-Fotos und -Videos

Works

Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series

Date
2014 - 2019

Materal
Prints

Description

Somnyama Ngonyama, the ongoing self-portraiture series that nonbinary artist Zanele Muholi began in 2012, refuses the exoticizing gaze. Whether using toothpaste mixed with Vaseline as lipstick or an assembly line of clothing pegs to form headpiece, the series utilizes elements of performance with the immediacy of both political protest and informal African trade and craft markets. The guerrilla nature with which these images are composed reveals the urgency to document the self. Muholi’s hairstyles, costumes, and sets are entirely self-realized, photographed only with natural light. Nomadic and impromptu, these shoots often take place alone. Muholi calls for new rites of self-expression, sexuality, mothering, and healing that usher in kinder modes of survival. Their artistic work is in part a response to South Africa’s ongoing femicide, the stigmatization of LGBTQI+ communities, and the proliferation of gender-based violence, especially the “curative” or “corrective” rape of Black lesbians.

Exhibitions