It is the long-awaited return of Zanele Muholi to the Tate Modern. The artist’s first major retrospective in the United Kingdom – initially inaugurated in 2020, it was interrupted due to the lockdown. It is therefore four years later, in a revised and expanded version, that the exhibition returns to the London museum, after a successful European tour.
“My mission is to rewrite the visual history of South Africa for Black queer and trans people, so that the world knows about our resistance and existence in the face of hate crimes in South Africa and beyond.” These powerful words from Zanele Muholi open the exhibition and set the tone. Activist-artist. Artist-activist. Two inseparable entities, intimately linked for Muholi who calls herself a “visual activist.” Because beyond aesthetics, what matters most in photography to her is the content: who is in it, and why?
In hers, it is those who make up the black LGBTQIA+ community of South Africa, that is to say lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queers and intersex people; of which Muholi, who identifies as non-binary, is a part. The why is documentation. Documenting their lives, their portraits, their reality – because it deserves to be seen. Documenting also to help assert oneself. To create a collective memory.
Born in 1972 under apartheid, Muholi grew up in a context of multiple discriminations. Although apartheid was officially abolished in 1994 and the South African Constitution of 1996 was the first in the world to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, the LGBTQIA+ community still remains the target of prejudice, hate crimes and violence. “It is important to mark, map and preserve our movements through visual stories for reference and posterity, so that future generations know we were there,” they write.
Faces and Phases is thus presented as a living archive, which highlights the diversity and richness of this community. Initiated in 2006, this evolving series now includes more than 600 portraits. Faces refers to the person photographed, while Phases evokes both gender transitions and changes inherent in daily life, such as aging, education, work or marriage. The installation creates a striking effect upon entering the room: dozens of faces, displayed in large format on two immense walls facing each other. Each person photographed stares intensely into the lens. We meet their gaze, we delve into it and we see courage, determination, and assertion.
If Muholi wants visibility for her community, it is more of a happy visibility. In her series Only Half the Picture, which opens the exhibition, she shows the scars of violence suffered but also and above all sweet and intimate moments. A way of capturing the dignity and resilience of marginalized people, while breaking with the victim representation that is often associated with them.
In Beings, we find these shared moments, here between couples, in their daily lives and in their private spaces. Spaces are indeed key in Muholi’s work. Especially public ones, because they are political. And photographing black LGBTQIA+ people in chosen places, such as beaches, powerful symbols of the impact of racial segregation, is an important part of her visual activism. A way of re-appropriating them, after they were forbidden to them for a long time. Thus, with a rainbow-colored parasol in her hand and a long white toga in the wind, Mellisa Mbambo, a trans woman and beauty queen, poses on Durban beach. A moving and powerful shot.
After photographing others for so long, Zanele Muholi began an introspective series called Somnyama Ngonyama (“Hail, black lioness!” in her native Zulu). The project stems from a personal and artistic need: “When we document and photograph others, we tend to forget ourselves. I wanted to find an artistic expression to confront my own pain.” Through self-portraits, Muholi explores deep issues related to her personal history, racism, Eurocentrism, and sexual politics. The self-portraits are taken in various locations around the world, using materials and objects found in her immediate environment. This approach gives each photograph a universal yet intimate scope. In one of them, Muholi is seen wearing a crown of clothespins. Using these materials is a way of paying tribute to domestic workers of colour, who were forced by laws under apartheid to work in low-paid jobs. This was the case for her mother, Bester – after whom the work is named – who was a single mother of eight. In this black and white series, Muholi intensifies the contrast of her skin, which has the effect of darkening her complexion. “I am reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continually interpreted by the privileged other”, a way of deconstructing stereotypes and proposing a new reading of black identity, assertive and powerful.
Somnyama Ngonyama is also a tribute to the plurality and fluidity of the ‘self’. For Muholi, the use of the pronouns they/them goes beyond gender identity, they acknowledge her ancestors and the many facets of her identity: “There are those who came before me and who make me.” And of course there are those around her. The last room is called “Collectivity,” and features images made in collaboration at public events such as pride marches, weddings, and funerals, reminding us that this collectivity is at the heart of her work. As Zanele Muholi says, “No one can tell our story better than ourselves.”
Marine Aubenas
Zanele Muholi
Until January 26, 2025
Tate Modern
Natalie Bell Building, Level 3 – Bankside – London SE1 9TG
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/zanele-muholi
