ATLANTA, GA.- Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is presenting the United States premiere of “Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail The Dark Lioness,” an internationally touring exhibition organized by Autograph, London and curated by Renée Mussai. In more than 70 photographs, visual activist Zanele Muholi (South African, b. 1972), whose pronouns are they, them, and their, uses their body as a canvas to confront the politics of race and representation in the visual archive.

In “Somnyama Ngonyama,” which translates to “Hail The Dark Lioness” in isiZulu, one of the official languages of South Africa, Muholi playfully employs the conventions of classical painting, fashion photography, and the familiar tropes of ethnographic imagery to rearticulate contemporary identity politics. Spelman’s presentation of this ongoing series of self-portraits (September 14 – December 8, 2018) coincides with the release of Muholi’s long awaited monograph “Somnyama Ngonyama,” which is published by Aperture, the nation’s leading publication for the advancement of photography.

Each black and white self-portrait asks critical questions about social (in)justice, human rights, and contested representations of the Black body. Muholi states, "I’m reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other. My reality is that I do not mimic being Black; it is my skin, and the experience of being Black is deeply entrenched in me. Just like our ancestors, we live as Black people 365 days a year, and we should speak without fear." By increasing the contrast in post-production, the dark complexion of Muholi’s skin becomes the focal point of a multilayered interrogation of beauty, pride, desire, and interlinked phobias and isms that must be navigated daily such as homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, and sexism, to name but a few.

The exhibition features photographs taken between 2014 and 2017 in Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. In Muholi’s work, found objects are transformed from the everyday into dramatic and historically-loaded props, merging the political with the aesthetic. Scouring pads and latex gloves address themes of domestic servitude, while alluding to sexual politics, violence, and the often-suffocating prisms of gendered identity. Rubber tires, cable ties, or electrical cords invoke forms of social brutality and exploitation, often commenting on events in South Africa’s history; materials such as plastic draw attention to environmental issues and global waste. Accessories like cowrie shells and beaded fly whisks highlight Western fascinations with clichéd, exoticized representations of African cultures. Gazing defiantly at the camera, Muholi challenges viewers’ perceptions while firmly asserting their cultural identity on their own terms.

“The Museum has presented Muholi’s visually stunning, thought-provoking photographs in original group exhibitions including “Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identity” (2006) and “AFRICA FORECAST: Fashioning Contemporary Life” (2016),” said Museum Director Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Ph.D., C’93. “It is a privilege to watch their career unfold over the course of more than a decade and present this work within the context of a solo exhibition.”

The Museum partnered with Autograph in 2016 to present “Black Chronicles II.” Regarding their current collaboration, Brownlee asserts that, “Autograph shares the Museum’s commitment to presenting challenging, dynamic, and relevant exhibitions, which explore timely contemporary concerns. “Somnyama Ngonyama” is no exception and exemplifies our mutual engagement with contemporary practice.”

Renée Mussai, exhibition curator and Autograph’s senior curator and head of archive and research, explains that “ ‘Somnyama Ngonyama’ presents a compelling and visionary mosaic of identities, an exquisite empire of selves. Inviting us into a multilayered, visceral conversation, each photograph in the series, each visual inscription, each confrontational narrative depicts a self in profound dialogue with countless others: implicitly gendered, non-conforming, culturally complex and historically grounded Black bodies. It’s a great privilege to be working with the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art again, and I cannot imagine a more fitting and appropriate institution to debut our Zanele Muholi touring exhibition in the United States – especially considering the current socio-cultural climate.”