'Zanele Muholi '

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.