“Brave Beauties” series - Dimpho Tsotetsi, Parktown
2014 - Photography (Photography)
76,5 x 51 cm
Zanele Muholi
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.
Colors:
Related works of genres: » lesbian artists
» see more
© » KADIST
Sadie Benning
2017In borrowing and subverting images from popular culture, Sadie Benning exposes the media’s role in constructing false and oppressive stereotypes of women, with regard to gender and sexual identity...
© » KADIST
Tammy Rae Carland
2002Carland’s series of large-format photographs Lesbian Beds (2002) depicts beds that have been recently vacated...
© » KADIST
Catherine Opie
1993Like many of Opie’s works, Mike and Sky presents female masculinity to defy a binary understanding of gender...
Related works featuring themes of: » Black-and-White Photography, » Contemporary Conceptualism, » Contemporary Realist Portraiture, » Cultural Commentary, » South African
» see more
© » KADIST
Pascal Shirley
2006Gypsy 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...
© » KADIST
Pascal Shirley
2006Like many of Pascal Shirley’s photographs, Oakland Girls aestheticizes a dingy rooftop and a cloudy sky...
© » KADIST
Miljohn Ruperto
2009Miljohn Ruperto’s silent video work Appearance of Isabel Rosario Cooper is an archive of ghosts...
© » KADIST
Hank Willis Thomas
2012Intentionally Left Blanc alludes to the technical process of its own (non)production; a procedure known as retro-reflective screen printing in which the image is only fully brought to life through its exposure to flash lighting...
Other related works, blended automatically
» see more
© » ANOTHER
Zanele Muholi
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...
© » KADIST
Pascal Shirley
2006Gypsy 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...
© » KADIST
Pascal Shirley
2006Like many of Pascal Shirley’s photographs, Oakland Girls aestheticizes a dingy rooftop and a cloudy sky...
© » KADIST
Hank Willis Thomas
2013The image is borrowed from protests during Civil Rights where African Americans in the south would carry signs with the same message to assert their rights against segregation and racism...
Other works by: » Zanele Muholi
» see more
© » ANOTHER
Zanele Muholi
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...
© » KADIST
Zanele Muholi
2014As 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...
© » KADIST
Zanele Muholi
2014As 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...
Related artist(s) to: Zanele Muholi » David Goldblatt, » Jo Ractliffe, » Mikhael Subotzky, » Santu Mofokeng, » Guy Tillim, » Patrick Waterhouse, » Sabelo Mlangeni, » Andrew Esiebo, » Penny Siopis, » Amar Kanwar
» see more
© » KADIST
David Goldblatt
1979David Goldblatt’s “Boksburg series” is a telling portrait of the small town that became a notorious symbol of racism in South Africa...
© » KADIST
Sabelo Mlangeni
2019The Royal House of Allure is a name of a safe house on mainland Lagos where members of the queer community in need of boarding, due to various circumstances, live together...
© » KADIST
Mikhael Subotzky
2004“Pasvang, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison” is the result of three months Subotzky spent inside the walls of Pollsmoor Prison, an overcrowded correctional facility largely controlled by gangs...
© » KADIST
Sabelo Mlangeni
2019The Royal House of Allure is a name of a safe house on mainland Lagos where members of the queer community in need of boarding, due to various circumstances, live together...
Related works found in the same semantic group
» see more
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Those Long Haired Nights: Filipino film highlights struggle for transgender rights (via SEA Globe) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 17, 2018 With its true-to-life representation of transgender sex workers in Manila, Gerardo Calagui’s 2017 film Those Long Haired Nights is not afraid to court controversy...
© » KADIST
Tomoko Kikuchi
2014The series Funerals under Neon Lights by Tomoko Kikuchi focuses on how transgender people’s ritual became a vital part of funerals in rural China...
