"I was born in South Africa, I came out in South Africa and my work is taken from my life. We have to document in the ways that we know how,” these words describe Zanele Muholi, a South African visual artist and activist dedicated to advocating for the rights and visibility of Black LGBTQ+ individuals. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in the United States is presently hosting the first major West Coast exhibition of Muholi’s work. Titled Zanele Muholi: Eye Me, the exhibition is on view from January 18 - August 11, 2024. It features over 100 photographs from 2002 to the present, alongside paintings, sculptures and videos. The exhibition curated by Shana Lopes, assistant curator of photography; Erin O'Toole, curator and head of photography and Sally Martin Katz, curatorial associate, photography, offers audiences a chance to engage with the artist’s endeavours to document the ongoing struggles and celebrate the resilience of the Black queer community, providing a crucial narrative that challenges societal norms. 

Muholi’s work is deeply personal and rooted in their own experiences as a Black queer person in South Africa, a country with a complex history of racial and social injustice. Post-apartheid, the country has made strides in LGBTQ+ rights, yet violence and discrimination against queer individuals persist. The African artist sees art as a crucial tool for documenting queer culture for current and future generations. Eye Me is the first large-scale exhibition that highlights Muholi’s journey, from their early photographic series, Only Half the Picture focusing on queer identity to more recent self-portraits from the series titled Somnyama Ngonyama (Zulu for ‘Hail the Dark Lioness’) that boldly celebrates Blackness and queerness.

The visual activist’s work brings issues of gender identity, representation and race to the forefront. Their project as both an artist and activist aims to carve out space for Black queer life within the museum setting, using photography as a powerful tool for resistance and social change. From documenting the dangers faced by queer individuals in South Africa to embracing their own identity in series such as Brave Beauties or Faces and Phases—activism is integral to Muholi’s artistic practice.

In their art, Muholi photographs both their own body and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Their portraits, filled with profound tenderness are known for an intimate connection built on trust. The artist treats their subjects as collaborators, involving them in decisions such as location and attire.

“Muholi’s photography and activist art have been inextricably bound together; the artist describes their practice as visual activism. Often photographing their own body or members of their LGBTQ+ community in South Africa, Muholi sees their subjects as collaborators in producing the image. Their work calls attention to the trauma and violence enacted on queer people while celebrating their beauty and resilience. Over the past 20 years, Muholi has built an unprecedented visual archive of Black queer life in South Africa,'' shares Shana Lopes, assistant curator of photography.

A central tenet of the South African artist’s work is recognising the importance of who stands behind the camera as well as in front of it. Confident, sexy and positively radiant, the people featured in the Brave Beauties series strike poses that declare their pride and comfort in their skin. Muholi uses the language and poses of fashion photography to create an alternate vision that proclaims Black queer bodies as gorgeous and desirable. This collaboration highlights the importance of visual representation for queer people, an act of defiance that comes with risks but is ultimately a statement of pride and path toward a wider acceptance.

The solo exhibition opens with Muholi’s first photographic series, Only Half the Picture (2002–2006), which grew from their involvement with the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), an organisation dedicated to providing healthcare, housing, and education for Black lesbians, which they co-founded. Travelling to various South African townships, Muholi documented survivors of hate crimes against the queer community. While some photographs in this series depict violence, others capture moments of intimacy and affection, shifting the series' tone toward hope and care for the community. The tightly composed black-and-white images are personal, tender and vulnerable, showcasing both traumatic events and moments of love and connection.

“It is through seeing ourselves as we find love, laughter and joy that we can sustain our strength and regain our sanity as we move into the future that is sadly still filled with the threat of insecurities such as HIV/AIDS, hate crimes, violence against women, poverty and unemployment,” says Muholi, summarising their ongoing series Being, which began in 2006. This series portrays couples in everyday moments, their intertwined limbs symbolising tenderness and love. Growing up, the activist had no examples of Black queer couples and this video art series offers a positive and joyful representation of queer love.

In 2014, Muholi started the Brave Beauties project, a series of photographs featuring empowered trans women and gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals. Inspired by magazine culture, these portraits highlight the agency of the participants in their self-fashioning. Many of them are contestants in queer beauty pageants; a familiar world to Muholi, who won second place in such a pageant in 1997.

The series Faces and Phases was initiated in 2006, aiming to create a visual archive of Black queer life for future generations. Each portrait in this series is a collaborative effort, with the subjects choosing their poses, settings and dress. SFMOMA presents 36 works from this series, which now comprises over 500 portraits. Complemented by video interviews, these portraits give voice to the participant’s individual stories, revealing the deep trust, intimacy and familiarity between Muholi and the collaborators.

Turning the camera on themself, Muholi explores self-portraiture in Somnyama Ngonyama, a series from 2012 to the present. In these powerful images, Muholi experiments with different personas and archetypes, using everyday objects as props to reference South African socio-political history and contemporary culture and personal events. Makeup and high-contrast lighting darken their skin to emphasise and celebrate their Blackness. “I am reclaiming my Blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other,” Muholi asserts. As both the subject and maker, they control their representation, playing with the politics of viewing. In some images, their eyes are averted from the viewer’s gaze, while in others they confidently return it, questioning what it means for a Black person to look back.

The art exhibition also includes the documentary film Difficult Love, co-directed by Muholi and Peter Goldsmid in 2010. The film offers an intimate look at the experiences of Black lesbians in South Africa, featuring interviews with Muholi and their friends and colleagues. The film underscores the importance of community and the visualisation of queer joy as an act of resistance.

During the pandemic, Muholi expanded their practice of self-portraiture into new media including art installations, paintings and sculpture art. Their paintings use bold colours and intricate patterns and the exhibition also features a bronze sculpture, a medium traditionally used to commemorate figures of power.

Born in 1972 in Umlazi (Durban), the artist now lives and works in Cape Town. Over the last 20 years, they have documented the lives of Black LGBTQ+ individuals in South Africa. Photography and activism have been intertwined in Muholi’s work since 2002, the year they enrolled in the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg. Established by renowned artist David Goldblatt, this programme was dedicated to training aspiring photographers marginalised by apartheid. They later earned an MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2009. SFMOMA has shown their work before, including work from their Faces and Phases series in the 2011 exhibition Face of Our Time and featuring them in the 2014 Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa exhibition, co-organised with the Yerba Buena Center for Arts.

Muholi’s work has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2017) and the ICP Infinity Award for Documentary and Photojournalism in 2016. Their art has been featured in major international exhibitions such as Documenta 13, the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and the 29th São Paulo Biennale. They have also had solo exhibitions at institutions like the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Autograph ABP in London, the Brooklyn Museum in New York and Casa Africa in Las Palmas.

Zanele Muholi: Eye Me holds significant symbolism for the artist's work and mission. At its core, the title emphasises the act of seeing and being seen. For the artist, it is a call to the audience to truly look and engage with the subjects of their photographs. The phrase "Eye Me'' encourages viewers to witness the humanity, beauty and strength of the individuals captured in their work, urging a deeper recognition and validation of their existence. This act of seeing is not passive; it is an active engagement that challenges the viewer to acknowledge and confront their perceptions and biases about race, gender and sexuality. By inviting the audience to this evocative display, Muholi underscores the importance of visibility and the powerful role that representation plays in the fight for equality and acceptance.

‘Zanele Muholi: Eye Me’ is on view from January 18 - August 11, 2024, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

As the international LGBTQIA+ community continues to march boldly forward, with greater visibility and advocacy than ever before, it continues to make original art that tells important stories. And we at STIR are always listening, eager to bring you more voices in the years ahead. Happy Pride Month!