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Sunday Francis Mdlankomo, Vosloorus, Johannesburg

Zanele Muholi

Photography

Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases series creates a visual repository of Black lesbian, transgender, and queer sitters in South Africa and its diaspora—one whose prior absence the artist linked to a history of invisibility, violence, and discrimination in the country. While legal rights for LGBTQ+ citizens in South Africa are among the most progressive in the world, these photographs respond to the discrepancies that exist between constitutional protections and lived experiences of gender and sexual violence. Muholi’s portraits emphasize a direct, frontal gaze and sense of self-assertion, interrupting a viewing of the subjects and their diverse identities as marginal.
MEDIUM Gelatin silver print
DATES 2011
DIMENSIONS sheet: 33 7/8 × 23 7/8 in. (86 × 60.6 cm) image: 29 15/16 × 19 15/16 in. (76 × 50.6 cm) frame: 34 1/8 × 24 1/8 in. (86.7 × 61.3 cm)  (show scale)
COLLECTIONS Photography
ACCESSION NUMBER 2012.72.1
CREDIT LINE Robert A. Levinson Fund
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Zanele Muholi (South African, born 1972). Sunday Francis Mdlankomo, Vosloorus, Johannesburg, 2011. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 33 7/8 × 23 7/8 in. (86 × 60.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Robert A. Levinson Fund, 2012.72.1. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2012.72.1_PS20.jpg)
EDITION Edition: 1/8 + 2AP
IMAGE detail, 2012.72.1_PS20.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2023
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Zanele Muholi
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