Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban, in 1972. She completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown and held her first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004.

She has worked as a community relations officer for the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organisation based in Gauteng, and as a photographer and reporter for Behind the Mask, an online magazine on lesbian and gay issues in Africa. Her work represents the black female body in a frank yet intimate way that challenges the history of the portrayal of black women's bodies in documentary photography.

Her solo exhibition Only half the picture, which showed at Michael Stevenson in March 2006, travelled to the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg and the Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam.

In 2008 she had a solo show at Le Case d'Arte, Milan, and in 2009 she exhibited alongside Lucy Azubuike at the CCA Lagos, Nigeria.

She was the recipient of the 2005 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts, the first BHP Billiton/Wits University Visual Arts Fellowship in 2006, and was the 2009 Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Muholi's photography has been compared to the way W.E.B. DuBois subverted the typical representations of African Americans. Both Muholi and Du Bois have created an archive of photos, working to dismantle dominant, pre-existing perceptions of the subjects they chose to photograph. Muholi views their work as collaborative, referring to the individuals they photograph as "participants" rather than as subjects. Seeking to empower their subjects, Muholi often invites participants to speak at events and exhibitions, adding the participant's voice to the conversation. Through their artistic approach they hope to document the journey of the African queer community as a record for future generations. They try to capture the moment without negativity or focusing on the prevalent violence, portraying the LGBTQI community as individuals and as a whole to encourage unity. Thus, their work can be considered documentative, recording the overall community LGBTI of South Africa and their challenges, and at times, more specifically the struggle of black lesbians.

Before 1994, black lesbian voices were excluded from the making of a formal queer movement. Muholi's efforts of creating a more positive visualization of LGBTI Africans combats the homophobic-motivated violence that is prevalent in South Africa today, especially in the case of black lesbians. While black women's bodies appear frequently throughout sexualized pop-culture, black lesbians are viewed (through the lens of the patriarchy and heteronormativity) as undesirable. This negative view of homosexuals in Africa lead to violence, such as murder and rape, and rejection from their families. Muholi's Zukiswa (2010), shows an African lesbian woman making eye contact with the viewer, displaying an unwavering gaze of confidence, self-awareness, and determination. This example encourages awareness, acceptance, and positivity with the queer community as well as South Africa.

Although Muholi became known as a photographer who engaged with the then-invisible lives of black lesbians in South Africa, they began to recognize this idea of "gender within gender." In 2003, and their sense of community definitively began to include trans people. Muholi was employed as a photographer and reporter for Behind the Mask, an online magazine on LGBTI issues in Africa.

Muholi first received global attention from the art world in 2012 at Documenta, a world-famous exhibition of modern and contemporary art in (Germany), for a series of portraits of lesbians and transgender participants titled: Faces and Phases. The photos were also exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Source: Wikipedia

Selected Books on

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II

Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi, Kerryn Greenberg, Allen Sarah

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness

Zanele Muholi, Renée Mussai

Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases 2006-2014

Zanele Muholi

Gallery

Yancey Richardson Gallery

Website

zanelemuholi.com

Selected Books

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II

Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi, Kerryn Greenberg, Allen Sarah

Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness

Zanele Muholi, Renée Mussai

Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases 2006-2014

Zanele Muholi

Inspiring Portfolios

Aline Smithson

Lydia Panas

Grace Weston

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Canada
1959

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Meryl Meisler

United States
1951

Meryl Meisler was born 1951 in the South Bronx and raised in North Massapequa, Long Island, New York. Inspired by photographers such as Diane Arbus and Jacques Henri Lartigue, as well as her dad, Jack, and grandfather, Murray Meisler, Meryl Meisler began photographing herself, family, and friends while enrolled in a photography class taught by Cavalliere Ketchum at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1975, Meisler returned to New York City and studied with Lisette Model, continuing to photograph her hometown and the city around her. After working as a freelance illustrator by day, Meisler frequented and photographed the infamous New York discos. As a 1978 C.E.T.A. Artist grant recipient, Meisler created a portfolio of photographs which explored her Jewish identity for the American Jewish Congress. After C.E.T.A., Meisler began a three-decade career as a NYC Public School Art Teacher. 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United States
1939

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Amy Heller

United States

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Brandon Thibodeaux

United States
1981

Brandon Thibodeaux (b. 1981) is a photographer based in Dallas, Texas, who creates portraits in the documentary tradition. In addition to his assignment work and creative commissions, he explores life in the American south. He is a member of the photography collective MJR, based in New York City.Clients and Publications ABC Disney, AARP Bulletin, Forbes, FT Weekend Magazine, The Guardian Weekend Magazine, Gatorade, Goodyear, The Los Angeles Times, Luminant Power, MSNBC.com, Newsweek, The New York Times, Pennzoil, US News & World Report, The Wall Street JournalAwards and AccoladesPhotoNOLA: Review Prize, 2nd Place, 2012; Center Awards: Review Santa Fe, 2012; Magenta Foundation: Flash Forward, US Winner, 2012; Oxford American: 100 Under 100,New Superstars of Southern Art 2012; FotoWeek DC: 1st Place, Portrait, 2011; Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography: Finalist, 2011; LOOKbetween Featured Artist: Charlottesville, VA, 2010; Getty Reportage Emerging Talent: 2009-10; Eddie Adams Workshop XIX: Jeffersonville, NY, Alumnus, 2006

Laurent De Gebhardt

France
1969

My childhood and adolescence were nourished by painting galleries and museums. Portrait and nude were my preference. After my studies, I crossed the Sahara and moved to the African bush for 2 years as a teacher then moved to Reunion Island where I began to make photo reports for NGOs. For a few years now, I have developed personal projects in artistic residency, mainly oriented towards the intimate and the portrait. My inner universe is imbued with a quest for an "original state" prior to any injury. The face is very often a revealing which does not deceive of this interior state and this quest specific to each one. Fascinated by the energy given off by the expression of a face, my work tries to draw closer with portraits to the reading of these inner states, perhaps to find my own way. Taxidermus Taxidermus is a series produced with the staff of the St-Denis Natural History Museum (Reunion Island). I wanted to play with the same characteristic codes of the first photos of the 19th century. The characters created posed with studied seriousness, in classic postures based on carefully chosen elements: armchair, desk, mirror, easel... Adventure and travel stories nourished my imagination from childhood and I found behind the scenes of the museum an atmosphere suitable for reviving these stories. I installed lights to recreate these chiaroscuro from the Flemish school and with the assistance of a team I dressed and styled these characters using authentic period costumes. I also found period objects in local associations and my hairdressing assistant studied period hairstyles to reproduce them as closely as possible

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