Zanele Muholi: dark lioness

With a new series of portraits, the South African artist and activist examines what it means to be black

By Mark Gevisser

Zanele Muholi’s self-portraits are so dark they glow. Called “Somnyama Ngonyama” (“Hail the Dark Lioness”), the series has been shown in ten cities across the world in the past year. Last autumn they stared out of digital billboards over Times Square in New York as part of the city’s Performa Biennial festival. They sold out in the previews at Muholi’s New York gallery and are about to be published as a book by Aperture. From a black, working-class family, Muholi is South Africa’s biggest international art star after William Kentridge and David Goldblatt, two white men a generation older.

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