No artist has so definitively captured the experience of Black queer life in post-apartheid South Africa as Zanele Muholi. This show at SFMOMA – their first major museum exhibition on the West Coast – traces their career with more than 100 photographs. It begins with Only Half the Picture (2002– 06) – Muholi’s first series, for which they travelled to townships across the country to document the survivors of hate crimes – and takes in their major, ongoing series of self-portraits, Somnyama Ngonyama (Zulu for ‘Hail the Dark Lioness’; 2012–present). Also on view are recent paintings, a medium Muholi begun to explore during lockdown. Find out more from SFMOMA’s website.
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Hate Crimes Survivor I, from the series Only Half the Picture (2004), Zanele Muholi. Courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi
Zazi I & II, Boston (2019), Zanele Muholi. Bader + Simon Collection. © Zanele Muholi
Somile (2021), Zanele Muholi. Collection of Christine Mack. © Zanele Muholi
Somnyama Ngonyama II, Oslo (2015), Zanele Muholi. Courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York; © Zanele Muholi