Date:
Location:
Curated by Renée Mussai
31 Jan 2020 - 01 June 2020
An Autograph Traveling Exhibition
In more than 80 self-portraits, celebrated visual activist Zanele Muholi (South African, b. 1972), uses their body as a canvas to confront the deeply personal politics of race and representation in the visual archive. In Somnyama Ngonyama, which translates from isiZulu to ‘Hail The Dark Lioness’, Muholi playfully employs the conventions of classical painting, fashion photography, and the familiar tropes of ethnographic imagery to rearticulate contemporary identity politics. Each black and white self-portrait asks critical questions about social (in)justice, human rights, and contested representations of the Black body.
ORGANIZER: Cooper Gallery at the Hutchins Center
WEBSITE: https://coopergallery.fas.harvard.edu/somnyama-ngonyama