Details

Title

Zibuyile I (Syracuse)

Artist/Maker

Zanele Muholi (South African, born 1972)

Date

2015

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

23 5/8 × 17 inches

Credit

Purchase with funds from the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family and the H. B. and Doris Massey Charitable Trust

Accession #

2017.300

Location

Currently not on view

Visual activist Zanele Muholi, whose personal gender pronoun is they, uses self-portraiture to address the politics of gender and race in the ongoing body of work Somnyama Ngonyama (which translates to “Hail, The Dark Lioness” from their mother tongue, Zulu). Muholi poses in locations around the world and incorporates everyday found objects such as props, costumes, and set dressing to build images that draw on their personal family history, consumer culture, and art history. In this photograph, Muholi addresses the viewer with a forceful, piercing gaze, challenging the conventional exoticized, othered, and sexualized depictions of Black female bodies.

Image Copyright

© Zanele Muholi.

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