Zanele Muholi’s (CRF 2012) exhibition Being Muholi: Portraits as Resistance has just opened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and will be available February 10 – May 8, 2022.
Being Muholi explores the life and work of internationally renowned South African photographer and visual activist Sir Zanele Muholi. Through their visual archive of representation, the artist captures intimate expressions of beauty, vulnerability, love, loss, and belonging, while simultaneously confronting issues of identity politics, selfhood, and Black queer visibility.
The exhibition features self-portraits in black-and-white and the U.S. debut of their colorful and expressive new paintings and a new bronze sculptural work. On view are rarely seen images from the artist’s ongoing, critically-acclaimed series, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, several of which were made during Muholi’s 2019 residency at the Gardner, and selections from Brave Beauties portraying Muholi’s chosen family in South Africa. Self-portraits made before and after the COVID-19 quarantine use found objects to address economic and environmental inequities. The exhibition also features poetic responses inspired by Muholi’s artistry penned by Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola. For more information, click here.