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

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.
Khayalami VII, Milan, Italy 2023
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.
Khayalami II, Room 120 Art Hotel Navigli, Milan, Italy 2023
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
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Hannah Silver is the Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*. Since joining in 2019, she has overseen offbeat design trends and in-depth profiles, and written extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury. She enjoys meeting artists and designers, viewing exhibitions and conducting interviews on her frequent travels.
-
‘Fashion & Interiors: A Gendered Affair’ at MoMu unpacks the hierarchy of the home
The Antwerp exhibition interrogates the relationship between fashion, interiors and gender through the concept of ‘gesamtkunstwerk’, a complete work of art. Curator Romy Cockx gives Wallpaper* a tour
By Dal Chodha Published
-
Milan Design Week: Dropcity challenges detention space design with 'Prison Times'
Dropcity's inaugural exhibition 'Prison Times – Spatial Dynamics of Penal Environments', opens a few days before the launch of Milan Design Week and discusses penal environments and their spatial design
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
ICON 4x4 goes EV, giving their classic Bronco-based restomod an electric twist
The EV Bronco is ICON 4x4’s first foray into electrifying its range of bespoke vintage off-roaders and SUVs
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Ed Atkins confronts death at Tate Britain
In his new London exhibition, the artist prods at the limits of existence through digital and physical works, including a film starring Toby Jones
By Emily Steer Published
-
Tom Wesselmann’s 'Up Close' and the anatomy of desire
In a new exhibition currently on show at Almine Rech in London, Tom Wesselmann challenges the limits of figurative painting
By Sam Moore Published
-
Unlike the gloriously grotesque imagery in his films, Yorgos Lanthimos’ photographs are quietly beautiful
An exhibition at Webber Gallery in Los Angeles presents Yorgos Lanthimos’ photography
By Katie Tobin Published
-
A major Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to the Tate Modern next year
Tate’s 2026 programme includes 'Frida: The Making of an Icon', which will trace the professional and personal life of countercultural figurehead Frida Kahlo
By Anna Solomon Published
-
A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlight
For more than a decade, photographer Richard Ansett has made Grayson Perry his muse. Now Sotheby’s is staging a selling exhibition of their work
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Cowboys and Queens: Jane Hilton's celebration of culture on the fringes
Photographer Jane Hilton captures cowboy and drag queen culture for a new exhibition and book
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Celia Paul's colony of ghostly apparitions haunts Victoria Miro
Eerie and elegiac new London exhibition ‘Celia Paul: Colony of Ghosts’ is on show at Victoria Miro until 17 April
By Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou Published
-
Teresa Pągowska's dreamy interpretations of the female form are in London for the first time
‘Shadow Self’ in Thaddaeus Ropac’s 18th-century townhouse gallery in London, presents the first UK solo exhibition of Pągowska’s work
By Sofia Hallström Published