Art back where it belongs

Lockdown meant that exhibitions were ground to a halt earlier this year – but the Tate is back with two stunning collections

THE PANDEMIC may have stopped the works of Zanele Muholi from being exhibited earlier this year due to the nationwide lockdown – but this November sees 260 photographs brought together to present the full breadth of the artist’s career to date.

For the first time ever, Tate Modern presents a UK survey of visual activist Muholi, an artist came to prominence in the early 2000s with photographs that told the stories of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex lives in her homeland, South Africa.

From their very first body of work Only Half the Picture, to their ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama, Muholi challenges dominant ideologies and representations, presenting the participants in their photographs as fellow human beings bravely existing in the face of prejudice, intolerance and often violence.

During the 1990s, South Africa underwent major social and political changes. While the country’s 1996 post-Apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, the LGBTQIA+ community remains a target for violence and prejudice to this day.

In the early series Only Half the Picture, Muholi aimed at depicting the complexities of gender and sexuality for the individuals of the queer community. INTIMACY The collection includes moments of love and intimacy as well as intense images alluding to traumatic events in the life of the participants.

Muholi also began an ongoing visual archive of portraits, Faces and Phases, which commemorates and celebrates black lesbians, trans gender persons and gender non-conforming individuals.

Each participant looks directly at the camera, challenging the viewer to hold their gaze, while individual testimonies capture their stories.

The images and testimonies form a living and growing archive of this community in South Africa and beyond.

Exhibition open from November 5 – March 7, 2021

https://shop.tate.org.uk/ticket/date?cgid=7623

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE

While you’re booking your tickets for Zanele Muholi you might want to check out Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s latest offering.

 Widely considered to be one of the most important figurative painters working today, Yiadom-Boakye is celebrated for her enigmatic oil paintings of human subjects who are entirely imagined by the artist.

This exhibition, the first major survey of Yiadom-Boakye’s work in the UK to date, will bring together over 70 paintings spanning almost two decades, including works from her graduate exhibition and new paintings shown for the first time.

Exhibition open from November 18 – May 9, 2021

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