BOOK SIGNING: Zanele Muholi / New York / November 19, 2014

Images from Zanele Muholi's Faces and Places, 2006-2014.

Images from Zanele Muholi's Faces and Places, 2006-2014. 

Join The Walther Collection for a special launch celebrating Zanele Muholi's new book, Faces and Phases: 2006-14, published by The Walther Collection and Steidl.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 from 6:30-8pm

Free and open to the public. 

RSVP essential: invitation@walthercollection.com

THE WALTHER COLLECTION PROJECT SPACE

526 West 26th Street, Suite 718

New York City

From The Walther Collection e-blast:

Zanele Muholi will be present to speak about her art and activism. Signed copies of Faces and Phases: 2006-14 will be available for sale.

In Faces and Phases: 2006-14, Zanele Muholi embarks on a journey of visual activism to ensure black queer and transgender visibility. Despite South Africa's progressive constitution and twenty years of democracy, black lesbians and transgender men remain the targets of brutal hate crimes and so-called corrective rapes. Taken over the past eight years, the more than 250 portraits in this book present a compelling statement about the lives and struggles of these individuals. They also comprise an unprecedented and invaluable archive: marking, mapping, and preserving an often-invisible community for posterity.

Accompanying her vivid portraits, Faces and Phases presents a series of moving testimonies by queer women and transmen who intimately engage with this long-term project. In poems and memoirs, Muholi's subjects describe the struggle to live a life of freedom in a social climate where being oneself can incite violence and abuse. With an essay by Gabeba Baderoon, as well as an extensive historical timeline tracking the oppression of gays and lesbians in Africa from the 1700s to today, Faces and Phases makes an extraordinary statement about resilience and solidarity.

Zanele Muholi was born in 1972 in Umlazi township in Durban, South Africa. She lives in Johannesburg. Muholi studied at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and received an MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University in Toronto. In 2009, she founded Inkanyiso, an organization that deals with visual arts, activism, media, and advocacy. The winner of numerous awards, Muholi's work has been featured in exhibitions including the 55th Venice Biennale, Documenta 13, the 29th São Paulo Biennal, and at institutions such as The V&A Museum; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg; The Menil Collection; and The Walther Collection in New York and Neu-Ulm, Germany. Her award-winning documentary, Difficult Love, has been screened at festivals around the world. Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence will be presented beginning May 1, 2015 at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. 

EVENT: Conversations Among Friends / New York / November 17, 2014

Zanele Muholi, Vredehoek, 2011; Nomonde Mbusi (detail) by Zanele Muholi.

Featuring artist Zanele Muholi and actress Nomonde Mbusi

Monday, November 17, 2014

 7:00 pm program | 8:15 pm reception

Doors open at 6:45 pm

Tickets ($35 General Admission, $20 Members, $12 Students) may be purchased at the Museum information and film desks, online at MoMA.org, or through The Friends of Education Office.

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

The Celeste Bartos Theater (Theater 3)

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building

4 West 54^th Street

New York, NY

From moma.org:

Presented by The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art as part of the series Conversations: Among Friends, this evening's program features a conversation between artist Zanele Muholi and actress, director, and playwright Nomonde Mbusi, moderated by Judith B. Hecker, MoMA's assistant curator for drawings and prints. The program will focus on Muholi’s work as a "visual activist" dedicated to issues of race, gender, and sexuality, and will reflect on this year’s 20th anniversary of democracy in South Africa—still a work in progress. Muholi is best known for her photographic series Faces and Phases, five of which are in MoMA’s collection. Begun in 2006, this series portrays black members of the LGBTI community in South Africa and around the world, giving voice to their stories and displacing conventional perceptions. Nomonde Mbusi, one of Muholi’s participants in Faces and Phases and an artist and activist in her own right, joins the discussion. Following the program, guests are invited to continue the conversation at an intimate reception catered by Fantasy Fare in The Cullman Mezzanine. Muholi’s newest book, Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases 2006–2014 (The Walther Collection/Steidl 2014) will be available for purchase and signing by the artist.

Zanele Muholi was born in 1972 in Umlazi township in Durban, South Africa, and currently lives in Johannesburg. Prior to her photographic journeys, she worked as a human rights activist, raising issues facing black lesbian women in South Africa. In 2009 she founded Inkanyiso, an organization centered on visual arts, activism, media, and advocacy. Muholi studied at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, and graduated from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2009 with an MFA in documentary media. She is the winner of awards from the 2009 Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial; the 2013 Carnegie International; and recipient of a 2013 Prince Claus Award. Muholi’s work has been featured in the 55th Venice Biennale; Documenta 13; the 29th São Paulo Biennial; and has been shown at prestigious museums worldwide. Her work can be found in numerous museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; The Menil Collection, Houston; and The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany; among others. Her award-winning documentary Difficult Love (2010) has been shown at film festivals around the world.

Nomonde Mbusi was trained in dramatic arts at the University of Zululand. Since 1997, she has performed in numerous theater productions and is best known for her role as Fikile in Flipping the Script, a four women show on gender-based violence (2004-07). In 2004 she cofounded Insika Productions with Muholi, where she worked as artistic director and facilitator. Through Insika, she organized creative arts healing workshops for women survivors of violence in organizations such as POWA-People Opposing Women Abuse and FEW-Forum for the Empowerment of Women. Her recent acting accomplishments include the lead role of Brenda on SABC 1’s drama Usindiso (Redemption), and Thando in Dr. John Kani’s play Nothing but The Truth at the Soweto Theatre, along with several other television and radio performances.

Judith B. Hecker, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints at MoMA, organized Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now: Prints from The Museum of Modern Art (2011), which featured some 80 prints, artist’s books, posters, and wall stencils by artists living in South Africa that were acquired by the Museum. She co-curated MoMA’s presentation of the touring exhibition William Kentridge: Five Themes (2010), and authored the accompanying publication Trace: William Kentridge, Prints from The Museum of Modern Art.

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