NYC Exhibition Features The Dangerous Lives Of South African Lesbians Of Color

As South Africans commemorated twenty years of post-apartheid democracy last year, Johannesburg-based photographer Zanele Muholi was documenting the violence that persists against the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex communities. The series “Faces and Phases,” 2006–14, for example, like much of the work of this self-described “visual activist,” measures the distance between the liberties enshrined in South Africa’s lauded constitution and the sexual violence and hate crimes that continue to be committed against local women, especially black lesbians.

Following on the heels of Muholi’s recent showings at the Venice Biennale and Documenta 13 in 2012, this exhibition draws together nearly ninety of her photographs, videos, and installations since 2007 under the theme ofisibinelo, a Zulu word suggesting evidence to behold or an example to witness.