Zanele Muholi Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1972 -

Zanele Muholi - b. 1972, Umlazi, South Africa

South African photographer and filmmaker Zanele Muholi was born in 1972 in Umlazi, South Africa. Self-identifying as a visual activist, Muholi’s development as a photographer is deeply intertwined with her advocacy on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community in South Africa and beyond. After Muholi cofounded the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002, she enrolled in the Advanced Programme in Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, South Africa, founded by the photographer David Goldblatt in 1989. In 2009 Muholi earned her MFA in documentary media from Ryerson University in Toronto.

Since her first solo exhibition, Visual Sexuality, in Johannesburg in 2004, Muholi has produced a number of photographic series that investigate the severe disconnect in post-apartheid South Africa between the equality promoted by the country’s 1996 Constitution and the bigotry toward and violent acts targeting individuals within the LGBTI community. As an ensemble, Muholi’s photographs display the depth and diversity of this community in South Africa and in various countries she has visited in recent years. Her commitment to redressing the social injustices faced by LGBTI community members is profound, and she embraces a subjective perspective in her practice by forming relationships with the individuals she depicts: the women in Only Half the Picture (2003–04), the transgendered or gay men in Beulahs (2006–10), and the couples in Being (2007).

The early photographs that comprise the series Only Half the Picture feature an image of a woman binding her breasts, another of two women laughing in a sun-drenched room, and close-ups of black flesh marked by scars. By photographing her friends and acquaintances modifying their appearances, enjoying tender moments, and exposing the injuries inflicted by violence, Muholi offers a glimpse into the varied experiences, rituals, joys, and hardships of her subjects.

In the individual black-and-white portraits of lesbians, women, and trans men that comprise Muholi’s ongoing Faces and Phases series (2006–) the sitters’ nuanced expressions and distinctive dress challenge the formulaic frontal pose of traditional portraiture. While nearly all the individuals who appear in the series display a stony expression that boldly confronts the gaze of the viewer, each face intimates something different—curiosity, disenchantment, pride, frustration, or compassion. In constructing a visual archive of individuals from the LGBTI community, Muholi also bestows agency upon her subjects by providing an outlet for self-representation.

Solo exhibitions of Muholi’s work have been hosted by Casa África, Las Palmas, Spain (2011); Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg (2012); Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena (2013); Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto (2014); Schwules Museum, Berlin (2014); and the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts (2014). Photographs from Muholi’s Faces and Phases series were included in the São Paulo Biennial (2010), Documenta (2012), and the South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2013). Muholi lives and works in Johannesburg.