SFMOMA // January 18, 2024 – August 11, 2024
Zanele Muholi, Hate Crimes Survivor I, from the series Only Half the Picture, 2004; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta, Ext. 2, Lakeside, Johannesburg, from the series Being, 2007; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, LiZa I, from the series Being, 2009; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Yaya Mavundla, Parktown, Johannesburg, from the series Brave Beauties, 2014; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Miss D’vine II, 2007; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Lebo Leptie Phume Daveyton, Johannesburg, 2013; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Nontuthuzelo Mduba Daveyton, Johannesburg, 2013; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Cwazimula II, Paris, France, 2019; courtesy Jonathan Carver Moore; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Thathu I, The Sails, Durban, 2019; collection of Pamela and David Hornik; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Vukani II, Paris, France, 2014; collection of Pamela and David Hornik; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Somnyama Ngonyama II, Oslo, 2015; courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Zazi I & II, Boston, 2019; Bader + Simon Collection; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Faniswa, Seapoint, Cape Town, from the series Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness), 2016; collection San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase, 2018; photo: Katherine Du Tiel; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Somile, 2021; collection of Christine Mack; © Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi, Muholi, 2021; Bill and Christy Gautreaux Collection, Kansas City, MO; © Zanele Muholi
A self-described visual activist, Zanele Muholi uses the camera to explore issues of gender identity, representation, and race. Often photographing their own body or members of their LGBTQ+ community in South Africa, Muholi calls attention to the trauma and violence enacted on queer people while celebrating their beauty and resilience.
Activism is central to Muholi’s artistic practice, from their early work contending with the dangers of being queer in South Africa to their more recent work embracing their own blackness and gender expression. This exhibition brings together photographs from 2002 to the present alongside the artist’s latest explorations in painting and sculpture. The first major exhibition of Muholi’s work on the West Coast, it provides the opportunity for Bay Area audiences to experience the full range of the artist’s expansive project.
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On view at SFMOMA from January 18–August 11, 2024, Zanele Muholi: Eye Me brings together over 100 of the artist’s photographs from 2002 to the present, alongside paintings, sculpture, and video. The exhibition provides an opportunity for audiences to experience Muholi’s expansive artistic project to celebrate and make visible their Black queer community in post-apartheid South Africa.
Read our feature interview with the artist last year.
