Zanele Muholi

Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Johannesburg, Stevenson Gallery, Somnyama Ngonyama, 2012-2020 (another example)

Zanele Muholi’s career started 20 years ago while focusing their lens on Black LGBTQIA+ people in their South African homes in a long quest to represent the Black queer society and the struggles that modern society impose on them. In Somnyama Ngonyama - Hail the Dark Lioness (2012 to 2018), Muholi’s recent series of self-portraits that stand between fiction and truth, the artist is directly staring at the viewer, portraying themselves with every guise, hairstyle and costume.

Defying the conventional form of representation, Muholi embodies black identity as a political statement of self-affirmation. When questioned about the stimulus of their career dedication to their community, Muholi comments: “I was prompted by absence and silence, and a longing for respect and recognition for the LGBTQIA+ community. People were kept voiceless for many years, so I consciously thought that I needed to create a visual archive that could speak to me and many others. If you don’t see yourself in the media, you’re forced to create visual content that can fulfil you. I wanted to build an archive that is not erasable, that would live beyond us, hence we reach Faces and Phases 14 in 2020. People come out, others transition — phases change, but our faces and publications continue to live.”

Muholi, who identifies as non-binary and prefers to be called a visual activist, has previously appeared at the likes of the prestigious Documenta (13) in Kassel, Germany, and the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and a retrospective of their body of work is currently exhibited at the Tate Modern, London.