Zanele Muholi

Gropius Bau host the first major exhibition of South Africa artist Zanele Muholi, a photographer who identifies as a visual activist and has been documenting the life of Black LGBTQIA+ communities since the early 2000s in intimate and powerful photographs across South Africa and beyond.

Alongside their earlier, lesser-known series, the show will feature recent works to display the full range of Muholi’s photographic practice, which addresses sexual politics, racial violence, communal resistance and self-assertion. Muholi’s photography is not only a gesture of empowerment, but consistently challenges the heteronormative gaze while building a network of affinity and new pictorial histories.

Some of her series have contributed to a growing visual archive that celebrates Black queer and trans selfhood, acting as a testimony of those who risk their lives to live authentically in the face of repression and discrimination.