Zanele Muholi

Known internationally for their photographic works, the South African visual activist Zanele Muholi has embraced bronze sculpture as a new way of exploring self-portraiture.  Evolving from larger than life-size busts to monumental figures, their newest bronze,  Muholi V,  is the artist’s largest bronze to date. The work combines Muholi’s activist and aesthetic interests, culminating in a work that directly references the art historical canon while remaining embedded in today’s social and political issues.

Muholi V builds on Muholi’s reclining photographic self-portraits such as Julile I, Sindile II and Bona III, appropriating an art historical motif that dates from the Hellenistic portrayals of Ariadne and Hermaphrodite and continues to the present day.  For Muholi, the sleeping bronze figure of Muholi V comments on labor and rest, referencing the oppressive burdens historically shouldered by Black women. Raised in a township during Apartheid by a mother who was a domestic worker, Muholi has often referenced both her mother and the theme of labor in her photographs.  Pictured recumbent with closed eyes, the figure emanates innocence, vulnerability, and a long-sought freedom from fear. 

Artist and visual activist Zanele Muholi is internationally known for their extended series of self-portraits titled Somnyama Ngonyama and their portraits of South Africa’s LGBTQIA+ community. Born in Umlazi, Durban, they reside between Durban and Cape Town.  

Most recently Muholi’s work has been the subject of numerous international museum exhibitions including Tate Modern, London (2020); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2022); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2021); Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany (2021); Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art, Harvard University (2020); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (2019); Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina (2018); and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017). Muholi exhibited in May You Live in Interesting Times, the 58th Venice Biennale (2019); the 2019 Sydney Biennale; the 2013 Carnegie International; documenta 13 (2012); and the Bienale de Sao Paolo (2011). In 2023, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will present a solo exhibition of Zanele Muholi’s photographs, paintings, and sculpture.  

Muholi has received numerous awards including the Spectrum International Prize for Photography (2020), International Center for Photography Infinity Award (2016), 2013 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award, the Fine Prize at the 2013 Carnegie International, and the 2013 Prince Claus Award. In 2017 they were made a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. They are an Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts Bremen in Bremen, Germany.

Muholi’s publications include Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail The Dark Lioness (Aperture), Faces and Phases (Steidl/Walther Foundation), Zanele Muholi: African Women Photographers #1 (Casa Africa and La Fábrica, 2011); and Faces and Phases (Prestel, 2010).