Art Tour Continues: Zanele Muholi

Yesterday, I went to Tate Modern to check out Zanele Muholi’s exhibition which recently opened on the 6th June 2024. With over 260 photographs, this exhibition presents the full breadth of their career to date. Zanele Muholi is a South African visual artist working in photography, video, installation, and more recently sculpture. Muholi’s work focuses on race, gender, and sexuality with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000s, documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa’s Black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex communities. Muholi is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. The exhibition has different series that aim to draw the viewer’s attention. In the early series, Only Half the Picture, Muholi captures moments of love and intimacy and images alluding to traumatic events. Despite the equality promised by South Africa’s 1996 constitution, its LGBTQIA+ community remains a target for violence and prejudice. Other series in the exhibition that I enjoyed was Somnyama Ngonyama - translated as “Hail the Dark Lioness” where Muholi turns the camera on themselves. The images explored themes such as labor, racism, Eurocentrism, and sexual politics. Lastly, I enjoyed the Brave Beauties series which celebrates empowered non-binary people and trans women, many of whom have won Miss Gay Beauty pageants. As we continue to celebrate Pride Month; let’s remember that there are some parts of the world where those rights to be who you are do not exist and members from the LGBTQIA+ continue to be targeted in acts of violence because of homophobia and transphobia. I highly recommend this exhibition. It will be at Tate Modern until 25th January 2025.