Muholi est un.e photographe et activiste visuel.le né.e à Durban et vivant à Johannesburg. La mission qu’il.elle s’est donnée est de «réécrire une histoire visuelle noire queer et trans de l’Afrique du Sud pour que le monde connaisse l’existence et les résistances au plus fort des crimes de haine en Afrique subsaharienne et au-delà »
Il.elle a co-fondé le Forum pour l’autonomisation des femmes (FEW) en 2002 et fondé en 2009 Inkanyiso (www.inkanyiso.org), un forum pour les médias queer et visuels (activistes). Il.elle continue de former et co-animer des ateliers de photographie pour les jeunes femmes des townships (cantons).
Muholi a étudié la photographie au Market Photo Workshop à Newtown, Johannesburg, et obtenu en 2009, une maîtrise en documentaire à la Ryerson University, à Toronto.
En 2013, il.elle est devenu.e professeur.e honoraire à l’Université des arts / Hochschule für Künste Bremen.
Les récompenses et distinctions reçues incluent le Rees Visionary Award de Amref Health Africa (2019); une bourse de la Royal Photographic Society, Royaume-Uni (2018); Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2017); la Prix Mbokodo dans la catégorie arts visuels (2017); Prix ICP Infinity pour le documentaire et le photojournalisme (2016); Africa’Sout! Prix du courage et de la créativité (2016); Prix international exceptionnel des anciens de Ryerson Université (2016); Beau prix pour un artiste émergent au Carnegie International 2013; Prix Prince Claus (2013); Index on Censorship – Prix d’art pour la liberté d’expression (2013); et Casa Africa Award de la meilleure photographe et Prix de la Fondation Blachère à la biennale de la photographie africaine des Rencontres de Bamako (2009)
Des expositions des oeuvres en solo ont eu lieu à The Seattle Art Museum, Washingtown DC, USA (2019); Colby Museum, Maine, USA (2019); Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Georgia, USA (2018); New Art Exchange,
Nottingham, UK (2018); Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (2018); LUMA Westbau (2018); Fotografiska,Stockholm (2018); Durban Art Gallery (a survey exhibition conceptualised as a homecoming) 2017; Market Photo
Workshop, Johannesburg (2017); Glasgow School of Art (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); Autograph ABP, London (2017); Maitland Institute, Cape Town (2017); North Carolina Museum of Art (2016); Standard Bank Gallery, Grahamstown (2016); Gallatin Galleries, New York (2016); Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (2015); Brooklyn
Museum (2015); Akershus Kunstsenter, Norway (2015); Einsteinhaus, Ulm (2014); Schwules Museum, Berlin (2014);
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown (2014); and Casa Africa, Las Palmas (2011). The Faces and Phasesseries has been shown at the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); dOCUMENTA 13 (2012), and the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010).
Muholi a exposé In May You Live in Interesting Times, the 58th Venice Biennale (2019); they produced a city-wide project titled Masihambisane – on Visual Activism for Performa 17, New York (2017) and featured in the inaugural
exhibitions at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town. Group shows include Mirrors – The Reflected Self at Museum Rietberg Switzerland (2019); Yithi Laba at the Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg
(2019); Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2018); Recent Histories, Huis Marseille and The Walther Collection, Amsterdam (2018); Queering The Gaze at alphanova & galerie future (2018); From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face Picasso, Past and Present, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2018); In Their Own Form, Museum Of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, USA; the 11th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2018); Plastic Entanglements: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials at Pennsylvania State University (2018); African Art Against the State at Williams College Museum of Art (2018); Multiple Medium: Photographs from the Collection at the Cincinnati Art Museum (2018); the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial (2017); Traversées Ren@rde, Transpalette Centre d’Art (2017); The Photographic I – Other Pictures, S.M.A.K Ghent (2017); Structures of Idenitity,
Museo Amparo, Mexico (2017); The Face: A Search for Clues, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden (2017); Intimacy is Political: Sex, gender, language, power, Centro Cultural Metropoliano, Quito (2017); Art/Afrique, le nouvel atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2017) Kyotographie International Photography Festival, Kyoto (2017); Personae, FotoFocus Biennial, Cincinnati, Ohio (2016); Où poser la tête?, ICA Indian Ocean, Mauritius (2016); Second-Hand Reading: William Kentridge and Zanele Muholi , Mead Art Museum, Amherst (2016); Supporting Alternative Visions, Prince Claus Fund Gallery, Amsterdam (2016); Berlin Biennale (2016); Mina/Meg, Kulturhistorisk Museum, Oslo (2016); Systematically Open? New forms of production of the contemporary image, LUMA, Arles (2016); Reality of My Surroundings, Nasher Museum of Art, North Carolina (2016); African Art Against the State, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown (2016); After Eden/Après Eden – The Walther Collection, La Maison Rouge, Paris (2015); Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, and Guggenheim Bilbao (2015); The Order of Things, The Walther Collection, Ulm (2014) and After Our Bodies Meet: From Resistance to Potentiality, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York (2014).
Muholi a remporté en 2019 ‘Best Photography Book Award’ by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation for Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail, The Dark Lioness (Aperture) and was shortlisted for the 2015 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for the publication Faces and Phases 2006-14 (Steidl/The Walther Collection). Other publications include Zanele Muholi: African Women Photographers #1 (Casa Africa and La Fábrica, 2011); Faces and Phases (Prestel, 2010); and Only half the picture (Stevenson, 2006).