Zanele Muholi (South African, Born 1972) Isililo Xx
Provenienza : [Prior auction history]
2019-02-16, Strauss & Co, "Contemporary Art Auction", Cape Town, ZA, lot 20
2019-10-03, Bonhams, "Modern & Contemporary African Art", London, lot 81, GBP 4800
2019-10-07, Strauss & Co, "Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art", Cape Town, ZA, lot 578
2021-03-17, Bonhams, "Modern & Contemporary African Art", London, lot 1, GBP 17000
2021-04-21, Aspire Art, "Autumn Collection | Modern & Contemporary Art and Books", Johannesburg, ZA, lot 1, ZAR 110000
2021-10-12, Bonhams, "Modern & Contemporary African Art", London, lot 7, GBP 4500
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner. Zanele Muholi conceives of themselves as a 'visual activist'. They have created a prolific body of photographic work which documents the lives of LGBTQIA+ people living in South Africa. Muholi seeks to increase the visibility of queer experience through their powerful images to redress the ways in which individuals have been represented in historic and contemporary mainstream media. They understand their work as a collaborative act, and consequently view the individuals they photograph as 'participants' who play a significant role in the creative process. Following their extensive work photographing queer communities, Muholi turned the camera on themselves in 2012 to commence a series of self-portraits. Titled Somnyama Nhonyama – Hail the Dark Lioness, the ongoing series is an exercise in performing identity. Each of the striking portraits captures a unique persona assumed by Muholi. They adorn themselves with repurposed objects that serve as the symbolic accessories of the various personas captured in the photographs. The resultant images are richly layered with meaning to convey the complex nature of identity and self-representation. Isililo XX relates to this body of self-portraiture. Muholi conceals much of their face with a knit fabric that has been tightly wrapped around their neck. A leather hat sits atop their head and, as in other images in the Somnyama Nhonyama series, Muholi heightens the contrast in their prints 'emphasizing the glossy darkness of [their] skin as much as the gelatin-silver technology will permit' (Jayawardane, 2018: p. 170). The high-contrast hues accentuate the luminosity of the white paint applied to the centre of Muholi's face – a nod to the bodily decoration used in certain southern African communities as a status symbol and sign of community belonging. The whites of their eyes are similarly heightened through this high-contrast effect, so that '[their] gaze roars through the two dimensions of the photograph' to confront the viewer (Jayawardane, 2018: p. 171). The title of the present work, translated from the isiZulu as 'weeping' or 'lamenting', casts the image in a somber tone, recalling the seriousness of Mulholi's project of self-representation. As the artist states: 'Too often we find ourselves in spaces where we cannot declare our entire being. We are here; we have our own voices; we have our own lives. We can't rely on others to represent us adequately[...] Hence I am producing this photographic document to [...] teach people about our history, to rethink what history is all about, to reclaim it for ourselves – to encourage people to use artistic tools such as cameras as weapons to fight back' (quoted in Ngonyama, 2018: p. 177). Zanele Muholi's work has been exhibited widely in international contexts. Their photographs are held in prominent collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Tate, London, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Amongst numerous accolades, Muholi was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015 and was awarded an honorary fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society in 2018. In 2020 to 2021, the Tate Modern, London, staged the most comprehensive retrospective of Muholi's work to date, demonstrating the power and breadth of their photographic practice. Bibliography Somnyama Ngonyama, ed., Zanele Muholi: Hail the Dark Lioness (New York, Aperture, 2018) M. Neelika Jayawardane, 'Heeding the Dark Lioness's Call', in Zanele Muholi: Hail the Dark Lioness, ed., Somnyama Ngonyama (New York, Aperture, 2018).
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