Bongiwe "Twana" Kunene, Kwanele South, Katlehong, Johannesburg

Artist Zanele Muholi South African, born 1972, Umlazi, active in Johannesburg, South Africa

Date2012; printed 2014

MediumGelatin-silver print

DimensionsImage: 30 1/8 x 19 7/8 in. (76.5 x 50.5 cm)
Frame: 38 3/4 x 27 7/8 x 3/4 in. (98.4 x 70.8 x 1.9 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of Lawrence J. Wheeler and Donald Doskey

Object number2016.3.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextAn ardent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) "visual activist," Muholi uses photography to document and challenge the discrimination and violence faced by the LGBTQ community in South Africa. These portraits are part of Muholi's ongoing series Faces and Phases in which Muholi presents positive images of South Africa's LGBTQ community in order to confront social assumptions, stereotypes, and prejudices. Muholi takes portraits in black and white as a reference to a long line of documentary photography, including Seydou Keita's studio portraits in Mali in the 1940s and 1950s as well as images by Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Alex Soth, and others. Their subjects, like Muholi's, look straight at the camera: openly, defiantly, shyly, proudly.
[Rotation, African Galleries, December 2020; A. Maples; edited J. Ledesma, 2025]ProvenanceCreated South Africa, 2012, printed 2014; collection of the artist; [Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York]; Lawrence J. Wheeler, Chapel Hill, NC; given to NCMA, 2015.
Published ReferencesNorth Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection," (Raleigh, NC; North Carolina Museum of Art, 2024), illus. (color) 117.Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases,” October 1, 2016–January 8, 2017. Object Rights Statement

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) makes images of its collection available online to support research and scholarship and to inform and educate the public. Certain works of art, as well as the photographs of those works of art, may be protected by copyright, trademark, or related interests not owned by the NCMA. The responsibility for ascertaining whether any such rights exist and for obtaining all other necessary permissions remains with the applicant. To request images and/or permissions from the NCMA, please complete our online request form.