Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi at the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival "Side by Side" (2011)

Zanele Muholi (born July 19, 1972 in Umlazi , South Africa ) is a South African photographer and activist for gay rights .

Life

Muholi is the youngest of five siblings and completed her training as a photographer in 2003 at the Market Photo Workshop at the Market Theater in Johannesburg . In 2004 she had her first solo exhibition in Johannesburg. Her studies at Ryerson University in Canada Toronto she graduated in 2009 with the title Master of Fine Arts from the division documentation. The topic of her thesis was the visual history of black, lesbian identity and the politics of South Africa after the end of apartheid .

career

Muholi worked as a photographer and reporter for the online magazine Behind the Mask on African LGBT issues (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and “trans”). In 2002 she co-founded the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organization that creates safe places for lesbians to meet and work. In various projects researched and documented her criminal acts against homosexual women as "corrective rapes" ( corrective rape ) or physical assault, thereby making the public aware of these problems.

The majority of Muholi's work and exhibitions, both in South Africa and internationally, serve the same goals, with a particular focus on black homosexuality. In 2009, the South African Minister of Art and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, refused to open an exhibition with photos of the Muholi. The pictures were immoral, insulting and did not serve to build a united nation. In 2012, hidden hard drives containing important parts of their work were stolen from Muholi's apartment along with other work equipment during a burglary.

In October 2013, Zanele Muholi was appointed honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen . In 2015, Muholi was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize . In 2019 her work was part of the 58th Venice Biennale curated by Ralph Rugoff .

Awards and honors

• 2005: Tollman Award for the Visual Arts
• 2006: Fellowship for Visual Arts from BHP Billiton / Witwatersrand University
• 2009: Thami Mnyele Residency Amsterdam , Netherlands
• 2009: Ida & Ely Rubin Residency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge (Massachusetts) , USA
• 2013: Appointment as honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen
• 2013: Prince Claus Prize
• 2020: Spectrum - International Prize for Photography

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

• 2004: Visual Sexuality as Part of Urban Life. Market Photo Workshop exhibition. Johannesburg Art Gallery , Johannesburg, South Africa.
• 2006: Slide Show. Kunsthalle Wien project space, Vienna, Austria
• 2006: Only Half the Picture. Gallery Michael Stevenson, Cape Town , South Africa; then: Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg and Galerie 32-34, Amsterdam
• 2007: Being. Gallery Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
• 2009: Like a Virgin. Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos , Nigeria
• 2009: Faces and Phases. Gallery Brodie / Stevenson, Johannesburg
• 2010: Indawo Yami. Gallery Michael Stevenson, Cape Town
• 2011/2012: Fragments of a New Story. Casa África, Granada , Spain
• 2014: Zanele Muholi. Photographs. Gay Museum , Berlin
• 2017: Zanele Muholi . Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam, Netherlands

Group exhibitions

• 2005: Erotic Blenders. Toronto, Canada
• 2009: Rencontres africaines de la photographie . Bamako , Mali (Biennal of African Photography)
• 2011: For Those who Live in It: Pop Culture, Politics and Strong Voices. MU showroom, Design Academy Eindhoven , Eindhoven , Netherlands
• 2011: Appropriated Landscapes: Contemporary African Art from The Walther Collection . New Ulm
• 2012: snapshots. Gallery Wentrup, Berlin
• 2012: Documenta 13 . kassel
• 2015: Imaginary Fact: South African Art and the Archive , South African pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia , Italy

literature

• Sophie Parryer: Zanele Muholi: Only Half the Picture , Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2006, ISBN 0-620361468 .
• Michael Stevenson, Federica Angelucci: Faces and Phases / Zanele Muholi. Prestel Munich / Berlin / London / New York City, New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-7913-4495-9 .
• Zanele Muholi. African Women Photographers # 1 . Casa África / La Fábrica, Granada 2011, ISBN 978-84-15-30346-6 .

Web links

• Photographer website (English)
• Biography of the photographer (English)
• Documenta (13): Zanele Muholi
• Appointment event for honorary professor at the HfK Bremen (video, English)
• Zanele Muholi captures powerful portraits of South Africa's LGBTQ community. edition.cnn.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dradio .de: Art theft in South Africa. Zanele Muholi at Documenta.Retrieved May 15, 2014.
2. ↑ goethe .de: African women artists conquer their place: See and be seen ; hfk-bremen .de: honorary members. Accessed on May 15, 2014.
3. ^ Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2015. Accessed on October 21, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Central Pavilion / Arsenale: Biennale Arte 2019 | Zanele Muholi. May 15, 2019, accessed October 21, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Lower Saxony Foundation press release of March 18, 2020: Zanele Muholi receives the Spectrum - International Prize for Photography 2021 from the Lower Saxony Foundation , accessed on March 18, 2020
6. ↑ http://www.schwulesmuseum.de/ausstellungen/archives/2014/view/zanele-muholi-fotografie/
7. ↑ - ( Memento from August 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive )