Zanele Muholi

(South African, born 1972)

Zanele Muholi is a South African artist and activist who works in photography, video, and installation. Born in Durban, South Africa, on July 19, 1972, Muholi is the youngest of five children. The artist had their first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004, and completed their MFA in 2009 from Ryerson University in Toronto, with a thesis on black lesbian identity and politics in South Africa. Muholi's work is dedicated to increasing the visibility of black LGBTQ+ people. South Africa and other African countries still have rampant occurrences of homophobic violence, and Muholi aims to uplift LGBTQ+ people in these countries through their work. Muholi's work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim in New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Modern in London, among others.