Zanele Muholi’s Powerful Portraits Return to Tate Modern

WORDS Jo Buitendach PHOTOS Zanele Muholi; Tate/Larina Fernandes (Tate installation)


South African visual activist Zanele Muholi’s acclaimed exhibition returns to the Tate Modern in London.

If you’re visiting London over over the next few months, a visit to the Zanele Muholi exhibition at the Tate Modern is a definite must-do. This first major British survey of the artist’s work was originally opened at the gallery in 2020, but was cut short by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown. After a record- breaking European tour, a revised and expanded version of the exhibition is back.

Visual activist, humanitarian and art practitioner Zanele’s work largely focuses on and documents the lives of South Africa’s black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex communities. The exhibition features more than 300 photographs spanning the breadth of the artist’s career, from their very first body of work to their latest. The thrilling images challenge ideologies and present the participants in the photographs as empowered individuals existing in the face of prejudice and (often) violence.

Zanele Muholi exhibition – Zanele Muholi installation view at Tate Modern, 2024
Zanele Muholi installation view at Tate Modern, 2024

On show are works from throughout Zanele’s career, including the early “Only Half the Picture” series, in which the complexities of gender and sexuality among the queer community can be seen. There are also pieces from “Faces and Phases”, celebrating black lesbians and transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. In this series, participants look directly at the camera, challenging the viewer to hold their gaze. New works from Zanele’s series of dramatic self-portraits entitled “Somnyama Ngonyama” (“Hail the Dark Lioness” in isiZulu) show the artist turning the camera on themselves, adopting different poses and characters to address issues of race and representation.

Born in Umlazi, Durban in 1972, Zanele now lives in Cape Town, and works between Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. They studied advanced photography at Newtown’s Market Photo Workshop, before completing an MFA in Toronto, and becoming an honorary professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen, Germany. Outreach and art education are central to Zanele’s work, and in 2021, they founded the Muholi Art Institute (MAI) in Cape Town, which focuses on art education.

Zanele has already presented solo shows around the world, including at the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.

The exhibition runs until 26 January 2025. | tate.org.uk


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