Aperture announces the second volume to the critically acclaimed self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness. In Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Vol. II, artist Zanele Muholi (born in Umlazi, Durban, South Africa) explores and expands upon notions of Blackness, and the myriad possibilities of self.
Since the publication of the first volume, in 2018, Muholi has continued to create self-portraiture in various places around the world. Drawing on different materials or found objects referencing each environment, a specific event or lived experience, Muholi offers a multiplicity of bold interpretations of their own image. These imaginative self-portraits propose and probe a range of possible identities in today’s global society and respond emphatically to contemporary and historical racisms. Alongside nearly one hundred new photographs, curator and art historian Renée Mussai brings together a diverse set of written contributions from a dozen curators, poets, artists, and authors, building a poetic and experimental framework attuned to speculative futures and the ambiguity and complexity of representational politics. Powerfully arresting, this collection further amplifies Muholi’s expressive and radical manifesto. As they state in the first volume, “My practice as a visual activist looks at Black resistance—existence as well as insistence.”
Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Vol. II includes an extended interview with the artist, and essays by Sophia Al-Maria, Natasha Becker, Phoebe Boswell, Tina M. Campt, Natasha Ginwala, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Aluta Humbane, Ntsiki Jacobs, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Renée Mussai, Porsha Olayiwola, Lola Olufemi, and Legacy Russell.
Zanele Muholi : Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness Vol II
Aperture
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 172
Number of images: 80
Design by Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine, based on the 2018 volume by Duncan Whyte
Publication date: 2024-6-11
Measurements: 10 3/8 x 14 inches
ISBN: 9781597115377
US $85.00 / CDN $110.00 / UK £70.00
www.aperture.org/books
