Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London

Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London

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woman wrapped in materials
(Image credit: Courtesy of Hayden Phipps & Southern Guild)

Artist and visual activist Zanele Muholi celebrates the lives of South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in a series of arresting portraits that aim to offset the stigma around queer identity in African society.

Artist Zanele Muholi wrapped in bronze tubing

Khayalami VII, Milan, Italy 2023

(Image credit: Courtesy of Hayden Phipps & Southern Guild)

Now, Muholi is exhibiting new bronze sculptures and adding to their self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama (examples from which were shown in New York in 2021, alongside Muholi’s paintings) at their retrospective at Southern Guild, Los Angeles.

Muholi considers their own form in portraits taken all around the world, in new work that gently subverts the quotidian, whether wearing crowns of clothesline pins, bed sheet cloaks or lipstick made from toothpaste and vaseline.

woman wrapped in materials

Khayalami II, Room 120 Art Hotel Navigli, Milan, Italy 2023

(Image credit: Courtesy of Hayden Phipps & Southern Guild)

Ultimately uplifting, Muholi’s work emphasises a new positivity, aiming ‘to rewrite a Black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond’.

The Southern Guild Los Angeles exhibition, ‘Zanele Muholi’, is on until 30 August 2024, southernguild.com

‘Zanele Muholi’ at Tate Modern is on show until 26 January 2025, tate.org.uk

A version of this article appears in the July 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Hannah Silver
Hannah Silver

Hannah Silver is a writer and editor with over 20 years of experience in journalism, spanning national newspapers and independent magazines. Currently Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*, she has overseen offbeat art trends and conducted in-depth profiles for print and digital, as well as writing and commissioning extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury since joining in 2019.