SCAD deFINE ART honoree Zanele Muholi is a boundary-pushing artist esteemed for their work exploring notions of Black identity, community, and advocacy. A self-described visual activist, Muholi prioritizes the depiction of marginalized people from queer communities in both their home country of South Africa and around the globe. Through striking photographs, film, and sculpture, the artist honors the complex lived experiences of Black individuals, underscoring the vital need for visibility and agency.
Muholi’s exhibition includes several landmark bodies of work including Somnyama Ngonyama, translated from Zulu as Hail the Dark Lioness, an ongoing series of self-portraits that cast the artist as the central figure in sumptuous black-and-white images. In these staged confrontations, Muholi dons everyday items like clothespins, rugs, and plastic bags, which transform through unexpected arrangements, reflecting both personal and collective narratives of race and body politics.
The exhibition also features selections from Brave Beauties, highlighting trans women and nonbinary people in empowered poses, and Faces and Phases, a series of portraits that respond to the violence and discrimination faced by Black lesbians in South Africa. A never-before-seen group of self-portraits continues the artist’s Somnyama Ngonyama series in lightbox format. Through these works, Muholi reenvisions Black queer representation and challenges pervasive stereotypes, offering an empathetic and emboldened perspective of the human condition.
Zanele Muholi is organized by SCAD Museum of Art curator Ben Tollefson and presented as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2025.
Spirit Sanctuary is organized by SCAD Museum of Art curator Ben Tollefson and is presented as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2025.
Artist Quote
“My work is intended for every person – they could be a teacher, or they could be a mother whose child is Queer, trans, or gender non-conforming and who wants to have a reference point to show their kids they are not alone, or it could be for LGBTQI people themselves, to understand their own worth. It is about the need for documenting the realities of people who deserve to be heard, who deserve to be seen, and whose lives are often excluded from mainstream media and the art canon. This makes it political.
We are claiming space for ourselves in a conscious way in instances where these tend to be ignored by those who are in positions of power.”
About the artist
Zanele Muholi (b. 1972, Umlazi, South Africa) is a visual activist, humanitarian, and art practitioner who focuses on the documentation and celebration of the lives of South Africa’s Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex communities. Muholi studied advanced photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and completed an M.F.A. in documentary media at Ryerson University in Toronto. They received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège in Belgium and were appointed honorary professor of video and photography at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, Germany. In 2021, they founded the Muholi Art Institute (MAI), which focuses on arts education, advancing the missions of their previous initiatives, the Forum for the Empowerment of Women and Inkanyiso, an online forum for queer and visual media. The artist further facilitates access to art spaces for youth practitioners through projects such as Ikhono LaseNatali and provides photography workshops for young women and other youth in Cape Town through PhotoXP.
Muholi has been honored at the International Center of Photography’s Spotlights benefit and is the recipient of the Lucie Award for Humanitarian Photography; the Rees Visionary Award by Amref Health Africa; a fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society, U.K.; a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Minister of Culture; the ICP Infinity Award for Documentary and Photojournalism; the Africa’Sout! Courage and Creativity Award; and the Fine Prize for emerging artists at the 2013 Carnegie International, among others.
Muholi has presented solo exhibitions at institutions including Tate Modern, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík; Gropius Bau, Berlin; the Norval Foundation, Cape Town; the Seattle Art Museum; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Luma Westbau, Zurich; Fotografiska Stockholm; the Durban Art Gallery, South Africa; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Brooklyn Museum, New York. The artist’s Faces and Phases series has been shown in the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, at dOCUMENTA (13), and at the 29th São Paulo Bienal.
Muholi has also exhibited work in May You Live in Interesting Times, the 58th Venice Biennale, and in the inaugural exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, in addition to producing a city-wide project titled Masihambisane — On Visual Activism for Performa 17, New York. Muholi has exhibited extensively in international group shows at venues including the 22nd Biennale of Sydney; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Spain; Luma Arles, France; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Kulturhistorisk Museum, Oslo, Norway; and Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico, among others.
Zanele Muholi exhibition: ‘Zanele Muholi’
Now through July 6, 2025
SCAD Museum of Art
601 Turner Blvd, Savannah, GA 31401
www.scadmoa.org
