Artist
Zanele Muholi
Via Johannesburg, South Africa
Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban, in 1972, and lives in Johannesburg. She studied photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg. She was a founder of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organization based in Gauteng, South Africa. She was the 2009 Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has received a Fanny Ann Eddy accolade from IRN-Africa for her outstanding contributions to the study of sexuality in Africa, among many other awards and fellowships. In 2010 her Faces and Phases series was included on the 29th São Paulo Biennale; the series was published by Prestel and nominated as best photobook of 2010 at the International Photobook Festival in Kassel. In 2012 the series was shown on Documenta 13.
Zanele Muholi won the Index on Censorship - Freedom of Expression art award in London in March 2013. She is included on the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, titled "Imaginary Fact: South African Art and the Archive." Her work will be featured in exhibitions in France, Germany, Tokyo, and the United States this year, including the 2013 Carnegie International survey of contemporary art in Pittsburgh.
