Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions
EVERY YEAR, the Savannah College of Art and Design’s deFINE ART program brings together an international roster of artists at various stages of their careers with a series of exhibitions, new commissions, and public events. This year, the SCAD deFINE ART honoree is South African photographer Zanele Muholi (b. 1972). A self-described artist, visual activist, and humanitarian, Muholi works across photography, film, and sculpture with a focus on celebrating the identity, representation, and agency of marginalized communities.
A survey exhibition of the Muholi at SCAD Museum of Art presents key bodies of work. Brave Beauties includes powerful photographic images of trans women and nonbinary people; Faces and Phases brings attention to the discrimination and violence faced by Black lesbians in South Africa; and Somnyama Ngonyama (which means Hail the Dark Lioness in Zulu) is an ongoing series of self-portraits creatively styled with everyday objects that often have significant historic or cultural meaning. The exhibition features self-portraits from the series in a lightbox format being shown for the first time. CT
“Zanele Muholi” is on view the SCAD Museum of Art at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga., from Feb. 25-July 6, 2025. The exhibition is curated by Ben Tollefson
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The SCAD Museum of Art is also showing works by several other artists this season, including Christina Quarles, Virginia Jackson Kiah, Diedrick Brackens, and Samuel Ross. On March 24, the museum’s Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies is welcoming historian Celeste M. Bernier, whose lecture, Finding Anna Murray Douglass, will explore the critical role the wife of Frederick Douglass played in his success
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
Installation view of “Zanele Muholi,” Winter 2025 – deFINEart, Gallery 110, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga. (Feb. 25-July 6, 2025). | Photo Courtesy SCAD
FIND MORE about Zanele Muholi on Instagram
BOOKSHELF
Aperture published “Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness,” a fully illustrated monograph documenting the artist’s ongoing self-portrait project. The volume is featured on Culture Type’s Best Black Art Books of 2018 list. Last summer, “Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II” was published. “Zanele Muholi” accompanied a recent, full-scale survey at Tate Modern in London. The artist’s work is also explored in “Zanele Muholi (Fotografas Africanas / African Women Photographers),” “Faces and Phases: Zanele Muholi,” and “Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases 2006-2014.”
