76,5 x 51 cm
As a visual activist for the rights of Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBGTQI), Muholi’s photographs radically transgress the conventional perception of lesbian and transgender communities in South Africa. Members of the LBGTQI community who suffer from continuous attacks — “corrective” and “curative rapes”, physical and psychological assaults, and hate crimes — Muholi works from her own community to create strong and positive images of empowered individuals. As visual statements, her photographs seek to dignify the members of an often hidden, voiceless and marginalized community. The verticality and scale of the prints accentuate the resilience of the figures, confronting the viewers with their scrutinizing and empowered gaze. The photographs support and promote self-expression, pride and autonomy in the face of an oppressive social system to reshape and reclaim an authoritative black lesbian and transgender presence in the global landscape. Presenting the black and white photographs as first-person testimonies of homophobia, discrimination and violence of LBGTQI black women, the “Brave Beauties” series thus acts as a conscription to autonomy and a visual activation of equal recognition.
Zanele Muholi (b. Umlazi, Durban, 1972) currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. She co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002, and in 2009 founded “Inkanyiso”, a forum for queer and visual activist media. With the intention of highlighting the hate crimes in South Africa, Muholi subverts the oppressive narrative of Black queer and trans through rewriting a visual history.
Zanele Muholi’s Potent Portrait of South Africa’s Queer Community | AnOther As their new exhibition opens in San Francisco, Zanele Muholi talks about their powerful photos of queer survivors of hate crimes, couples in everyday moments, and self-portraits referencing history February 02, 2024 Text Emily Steer Zanele Muholi creates potent portraits...
Gypsy shows an ambivalent scene, in which broken blinds and its unsmiling subject are balanced with the stilllife plentitude of watermelon slices and the beautifully lit nudity of the sitter...
Like many of Pascal Shirley’s photographs, Oakland Girls aestheticizes a dingy rooftop and a cloudy sky...
The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...
Golia’s Untitled 3 is an installation in which a mechanical device is programmed to shoot clay pigeons that are thrown up in front of a white wall...
The fashion designer is selling off all the art inside his West Village townhouse at Sotheby’s New York to make way for a new collection....
The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...
Ed Ruscha's Poetry of the American Experience | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...
Miljohn Ruperto’s silent video work Appearance of Isabel Rosario Cooper is an archive of ghosts...
Charwai Tsai’s photograph documents her Hermit Crab Project installation upon the construction site of gallery Sora in Tokyo...
In his composition, Chocolate Bars, Eggs, Milk, Lassry’s subjects are mirrored in their surroundings (both figuratively, through the chocolate colored backdrop and the brown frame; and literally, in the milky white, polished surface of the table), as the artist plays with color, shape, and the conventions of representational art both within and outside of the photographic tradition...
The print Patient Admission, US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam (2010) features an Asian Buddhist monk and an American Navy Solider on board the Mercy ship –one of the two dedicated hospital ships of the United States Navy– sitting upright in their chairs and adopting the same posture...
South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....
David Goldblatt’s “Boksburg series” is a telling portrait of the small town that became a notorious symbol of racism in South Africa...
For Sentimentite Agnieszka Kurant collaborated with Justin Lane, CEO and Co-Founder of CulturePulse, to gather global sentiment data that has been harvested from millions of Twitter and Reddit posts related to 100 seismic events in recent history...
Ramirez’s The International Sail is the fifth in a series that features an upside-down worn out, mended and fragmented boat sail...
For Sentimentite Agnieszka Kurant collaborated with Justin Lane, CEO and Co-Founder of CulturePulse, to gather global sentiment data that has been harvested from millions of Twitter and Reddit posts related to 100 seismic events in recent history...