After a hilarious take on Gladiator II by Emily, we explore Muholi's unique path into activism, photography, curated exhibitions, sculpture, and self-imagery. Muholi's work focuses on queer communities in South Africa through a form of what the artist calls "visual activism". But there is also self-portraiture, as the artist is part of this LGBTQIA+ diverse fabric. For Muholi, their use of the pronouns they/them goes way beyond gender identity. It recognises past histories, visible and invisible, and identity as multitude. Muholi says 'There are those who came before me who make me.' Shockingly, Emily and I broke our own rules and actually visited the show together… which turned out to be quite productive.
To know more about the exhibition: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/zanele-muholi
You can follow them on Instagram too: @muholizanele
Follow me on Substack for more topics on art, society, artists and exhibitions.
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Music by Sarturn.
If you enjoy Katy Hessel's The Great Women Artists Podcast, this episode is for you. It is centred around the artistic practice of non-binary South African artist Zanele Muholi, whose work is steeped in questions of identity and gender in a sophisticated and nuanced way.
00:00:08
Hello and welcome to exhibition esters with me, Joanna and my
00:00:13
spectacular Co host Emily. This is a conversational podcast
00:00:18
where we discuss the body of work of an artist as seen
00:00:22
through their solo exhibition. We're based in London and our
00:00:25
motto is we visit exhibitions so that you have to.
00:00:30
It doesn't even have to be the exhibition we talk about,
00:00:33
especially if you live far, far away from London.
00:00:36
And by the way, if you do, why not start an exhibition?
00:00:40
It's this club where you live. It could be fun.
00:00:43
So we start this brand new year with an exhibition I've had my
00:00:47
eye on for a while, Zanel Moholy's solo show at Tate
00:00:51
Modern. Shockingly, Emily and I broke
00:00:54
our own rules and we actually visited the show together.
00:00:58
We'll let you know what the outcome was in the episode.
00:01:02
After hilarious take on Gladiator 2 by Emily, we explore
00:01:06
Moholy's unique path into activism, photography, curated
00:01:11
exhibitions, sculpture and self imagery.
00:01:14
Their last series, Somniyama and Gonyama almost left us
00:01:19
speechless. It's an exploration of the self
00:01:22
and self representation as plurality from Moholi.
00:01:26
Their use of pronouns they them so they are non binary goes way
00:01:31
beyond gender identity. They acknowledge their ancestors
00:01:36
and the many ways that identity can be constructed.
00:01:42
But mostly identity as multitude.
00:01:46
Moholi says There are those who came before me who make me, and
00:01:51
I can certainly see where they come from.
00:01:53
We are made from all the visibly recorded histories behind us,
00:01:59
but also the ones that didn't make it to the present and
00:02:04
remained invisible and untold. And this exhibition is very much
00:02:10
about the latter. So let's do this.
00:02:13
Come visit Mohali's exhibition with you chatty white ladies.
00:02:27
Hello and welcome back to Exhibitionistas Emily here, art
00:02:31
lover and exhibition goer. Thanks to all the folks who've
00:02:34
been with us for the past 12 months.
00:02:37
Yes, one year. It has been a sincere pleasure
00:02:41
to be in your company over the past year of this podcast and a
00:02:45
huge warm welcome for all who are joining for the first time.
00:02:48
If you're new here, Emily and I visit solo exhibitions so that
00:02:52
you have to or so that you can vicariously enjoy them through
00:02:56
us. We share our points of view, but
00:02:59
we also provide a bit of context and background by researching
00:03:04
the artists. I'm Joanna, independent curator
00:03:07
and writer and artistic director of Drawing Now Paris.
00:03:11
It's a pleasure and a privilege to be in your eardrums.
00:03:15
And we have a show for you today that is extra special.
00:03:19
You might even say rule breaking.
00:03:21
So we're going to discuss Sanel Maholi show at the Tate Modern,
00:03:25
which is going to be around until the 26th of January.
00:03:29
So there's lots to talk about there, but the reason it's rule
00:03:32
breaking is that Joanna and I were there Dun Dun, Dun
00:03:36
together. I know, I know.
00:03:41
And it was, it was so great. So obviously this is a first for
00:03:44
the podcast. Usually we see them separately
00:03:47
and we don't talk about them. We have a golden rule of not
00:03:50
talking about them until we're here together on the podcast to
00:03:53
sort of trade notes and perspectives.
00:03:57
But it feels appropriate that, you know, as we're going into
00:04:01
one year, that we saw the show together, which is why the
00:04:05
podcast was born in the first place.
00:04:08
Indeed. Yeah, it seemed right.
00:04:10
And for me, in many ways it felt like a 2 for one deal on an
00:04:13
exhibition because it's like I went through first on my own and
00:04:18
then again with you, Joanna, and my mind was opening and was kind
00:04:24
of experiencing the show anew in a very short space of time.
00:04:29
So that was great. Likewise, I have to say it was
00:04:33
really productive to have a chat with you.
00:04:35
We had a chat right at the entrance because I had seen the
00:04:38
show before and it really woke me up and it kind of excited me
00:04:43
and, and, and tuned me into things that I thought for you
00:04:48
would be a given. So I was surprised by what you
00:04:50
said and we may discuss this later on, but it was productive.
00:04:54
Maybe we can stop doing it again.
00:04:58
I think occasionally, yeah, we should.
00:05:00
Occasionally, yeah. When we can.
00:05:02
I think it would be really good to have the odd exhibition that
00:05:05
we see together. So here it is, dear listeners
00:05:08
live, we are redefining the rules.
00:05:12
That's it. So before we get into it,
00:05:14
Joanna, how was your week in culture?
00:05:17
Well, not very rich in that respect, I have to say.
00:05:21
I've been reading a few things, but for work, didn't finish
00:05:25
them, but we did something really cool, which was to try to
00:05:30
celebrate the winter solstice. So I mean, in some ways it is a
00:05:33
cultural thing, isn't it? Our daughter Constanza, who we
00:05:38
interviewed for the special, special episode of the
00:05:42
festivities, Family Edition. So she taught us about the Pagan
00:05:49
celebrations around the solstice.
00:05:51
And so we ate a really nice meal, simple but really nice and
00:05:57
heartwarming meal cooked by her and her brother Arthur.
00:06:01
And we told stories at the table.
00:06:04
So what do pagans eat? Not very versed on that, but I
00:06:07
do know that there's some baking.
00:06:09
There's some bread going on. So Konsha baked a bread with
00:06:14
some dried fruits in it. Huh.
00:06:18
That was it was Irish. So an Irish soda bake.
00:06:22
I want to say the other thing you do is that you do a fire, so
00:06:26
you sit around the fire, you decorate a branch or a tree, a
00:06:32
little bit like the Christmas tree comes from there actually.
00:06:35
So there's a lot of things going on and obviously we couldn't do
00:06:38
most of them because we were too busy and everything is geared
00:06:42
towards the 24th and the 25th, right?
00:06:45
So we didn't manage to do much, but just the fact of being there
00:06:50
together. We actually celebrated it on the
00:06:53
22nd because we can do it on the 21st.
00:06:57
We were invited to friend's house.
00:06:59
So winter solstice is the shortest day in the year and the
00:07:03
longest night. And just this idea of, you know,
00:07:07
being there in at night in the dark with candlelight and just
00:07:12
telling stories around the table is such a nice, simple thing to
00:07:18
do, just spending time together. So I hope we continue next year.
00:07:22
It was really grounding and and magical and.
00:07:25
And you think of just like how long humans have been doing
00:07:28
that, sitting around a fire, exchanging stories, you know, I
00:07:32
mean, that's the thing. That's.
00:07:34
That's it. Why?
00:07:35
It goes deep, right? I mean.
00:07:37
Yeah, yeah, very deep. You're right.
00:07:40
That's exactly how it felt. So yeah, that was my, that was
00:07:44
my little cultural moment. Yeah.
00:07:48
So I would say very rich then. It was a very rich.
00:07:51
It was very rich. How about you?
00:07:53
What? I'm curious.
00:07:54
Not so rich, not so uplifting. I saw, I saw Gladiator 2.
00:08:00
Just like, don't ask why. It's like, no, it's more than
00:08:04
two hours long, Joanna two more than two long hours plus.
00:08:12
So I liked the first one, but then I realized I was fully half
00:08:15
my age when that thing came out. And this got some good reviews
00:08:20
and Peter was Kane, but it was so, so bad.
00:08:25
Just swords endlessly clanking. You know those sword fights that
00:08:28
just take forever? Clank, clank, clank.
00:08:33
Just kill each other just like somebody get a gun please.
00:08:38
I think they should hire you for the sound effects next.
00:08:42
Time and just like heroic slow MO and then oh when their buddy
00:08:50
dies or whatever it's just a different version of the same
00:08:54
movie so the Russell Crowe character in this one has a wife
00:08:59
they're going into battle she's a warrior she's a warrior as
00:09:02
well and it's like they exchange rings before the battle.
00:09:06
This is my ring and for you it will be with you forever.
00:09:10
And this is my ring and it will be with you forever.
00:09:13
And I love you wife. I love you husband.
00:09:16
It's just like. So what was in dialogue you that
00:09:21
way? Yeah, that was like the opening.
00:09:23
And I was like, Oh my God, I'm never gonna make it.
00:09:26
It's just humorless. It is completely.
00:09:29
It takes itself so dead seriously for something that is
00:09:33
so preposterous. And I mean sorry, I just have to
00:09:36
say so. The.
00:09:38
Colosseum, they used to flood it apparently in real life like and
00:09:42
have like boats and they would fight from the boats like that
00:09:47
was the thing like. Really.
00:09:48
Used to do in the Colosseum in this they had a scene where it
00:09:51
was flooded and they had sharks in there.
00:09:55
No, you're kidding. You went and got some sea water
00:09:57
then. I mean, I mean, it was just CGI
00:10:03
sharks. Yeah.
00:10:04
The only there was the only bright spot was Denzel
00:10:07
Washington. Like, he was a joy to watch.
00:10:11
He played this really kind of conniving, political, you know,
00:10:15
kind of maneuvering guy. And he was, he was really, he
00:10:21
was he. He made the two hours bearable
00:10:25
at least. So he got 30 minutes out of it
00:10:28
when he was there in the scenes and that's it?
00:10:31
Yeah, the whole two hours. I did take an extended bathroom
00:10:35
break in the middle and sort of walked around the lobby and
00:10:38
looked at the posters, you know? So I take it you were not
00:10:43
entertained? Oh, nice.
00:10:45
Wow, nice fun. Oh, gosh.
00:10:51
But Zanelle Mahali very, you know, that's a bright spot and
00:10:55
we get to talk about that. So that's that's good news.
00:10:59
Do you want to tell us a little bit about the artist?
00:11:02
Sure, absolutely, with great pleasure.
00:11:05
So I'll just start by saying that we will mention sexual
00:11:09
assault in detail related particularly with queer
00:11:13
communities. So if this is not for you today,
00:11:15
dear listener, and if you haven't listened to all our
00:11:18
episodes, dig into our portfolio, just skip it this
00:11:22
time. For example, the Sufiana Babri
00:11:25
episode also touches upon brown queerness, trans and gender non
00:11:30
conforming people in a completely different way that
00:11:33
might be more suited for you. So go there.
00:11:35
And if you have listened to all of the episodes, bravo and thank
00:11:39
you. You know, I visited this show
00:11:42
twice. Just a side note, and the first
00:11:45
time it made me think of the American photographer Nan
00:11:48
Golden, of how gently she celebrated an invisible
00:11:53
community of people living at the very edge of the queer and
00:11:58
artistic New York society she was part of when AIDS, but also
00:12:03
obviously, a certain recklessness of nightlife and
00:12:06
drugs ravaged their joie de vivre, which is the least you
00:12:10
can say about it. Her book I'll Be Your Mirror
00:12:15
titled I'll Be Your Mirror have the same effect on me as a young
00:12:20
adult than Boy George had when I was a kid.
00:12:25
It just opens so many possibilities.
00:12:28
But I digress as there are parallels with Zanelle Maholi
00:12:34
but also a specificity in the latter that is unique to South
00:12:38
Africa which is where the artist lives and works.
00:12:43
So Zanelle Moholy is a South African artist born in 1972 in
00:12:50
Umlazi, Durban. They go by the pronouns they
00:12:54
them so they identify as non binary.
00:12:57
They were the youngest of a family of eight kids, four of
00:13:01
which died, so there are now only four.
00:13:04
And Maholi talks about recently having had help from their
00:13:07
sister in their artistic work as a great way of bonding.
00:13:11
So family is really important to them.
00:13:13
And also this idea of safe spaces which we'll encounter in
00:13:17
the exhibition and also maybe the exhibition as a safe space.
00:13:21
I think it's fair to say, right? So their mum was a domestic
00:13:28
worker of Zulu descendants who lost her husband, the artist's
00:13:34
father, shortly after they were born.
00:13:37
So Maholi speaks Zulu and is very connected with the tribal
00:13:42
history of their people, but also in on a wider perspective.
00:13:48
They recognize S Africans in general and their other
00:13:52
languages and tribal descendants is so In their 20s, Moholy lived
00:13:58
in Johannesburg, working in different corporate jobs and
00:14:02
also as a hair stylist, until they began working for the
00:14:06
website Behind the Mask, which featured stories of rape,
00:14:12
harassment, abduction, particularly in the queer
00:14:16
community, that were hardly mentioned in the mainstream
00:14:20
media. Such important work.
00:14:22
I mean, you know, I know that this is a South Africa context,
00:14:25
but it just makes me think of there's a lot of work happening
00:14:29
in the States around native communities and women who've
00:14:32
been disappeared and abducted and raped, murdered, etcetera,
00:14:36
but it has not even penetrated at all.
00:14:39
These things gain momentum and visibility.
00:14:43
It's so impressive that they were there, you know, at an
00:14:46
early time. Yeah, it really is.
00:14:49
And also the fact that they're doing it in the present as
00:14:53
opposed to say, for example, in Ireland, all the horrors that
00:14:57
were inflicted on mothers out of wedlock, for example, that we're
00:15:02
kind of reckoning with now. But we are kind of correcting
00:15:05
history. Whereas here it really is in the
00:15:08
present. And it's such a, such a strong
00:15:11
thing to do and, and, and, and difficult as well and dangerous
00:15:15
as we, we will see. So continuing this strand of
00:15:21
activism, in 2002, they founded Few so Forum for the Empowerment
00:15:29
of Women, which could be pronounced Few, which I find
00:15:32
interesting. I don't know how they say it.
00:15:34
So it's an association providing protection for women and
00:15:38
advocating for their safety. In 2003, they enrolled in the
00:15:43
Market Photo Workshop Gallery, which was a photography school
00:15:47
founded in 1989 by the South African photographer David
00:15:53
Goldblatt, who mentored them. So Maholi often mentions him and
00:15:58
his generosity. I seem to remember that David
00:16:02
Goldblatt even help them financially, so I hope I'm not
00:16:08
saying anything wrong. But I have this idea because I
00:16:11
remember in a video I watched Maholi saying that and then
00:16:15
quoting Zulu proverbs, saying one hand washes the other,
00:16:20
meaning that helping others creates a chain of support.
00:16:24
And this was directly related to David Goldblatt, but also
00:16:28
obviously to the community that they're showcasing and and
00:16:34
rendering visible. That one hand washes the other.
00:16:37
It runs right through the exhibition as well.
00:16:41
I mean, there's there's so many collaborators and participants.
00:16:45
There's a letter from people that meet them at different
00:16:48
points in their work. That that's absolutely true.
00:16:51
And and because of that, I think I just want to say a few words
00:16:54
about Goldblatt. So he was a white man of
00:16:58
Lithuanian Jewish descent. So his family fled the
00:17:02
persecutions of Jews in Europe in the 1890s.
00:17:06
So his photography, unlike anti apartheid activists, was not
00:17:11
focused on the violence but on the people.
00:17:15
He did not consider himself a social or well more specifically
00:17:20
a political fighter, but a photographer who thought really
00:17:24
hard about the power of photography in this particular
00:17:28
context, but also the failings of photography.
00:17:30
So I think he was a bit criticized by his activist
00:17:34
friends at the time for not being, let's say, overtly
00:17:40
activists in in his work. Because what he did, I mean his
00:17:45
choice was to photograph people, their work, their life, and to
00:17:50
provide extensive labels explaining the context in
00:17:54
exhibition space or say, in publications.
00:17:57
He followed, for example, black workers who had to endure very
00:18:01
long and exhausting bus rides to work in the city, which was the
00:18:06
effects apartheid had. So he focused more on the way
00:18:09
people were affected by segregation rather than the
00:18:13
violence inflicted on the segregated, which is, I think,
00:18:19
something we're still debating today.
00:18:21
You know, the role of images. I think I've mentioned this
00:18:25
before in regards maybe to Aria Dean, the episodes where we
00:18:30
focused on her exhibition at the ICA, because I always remember
00:18:34
being very struck by the moment when George Floyd's video, I
00:18:41
mean, George Floyd's death murder video was circulating.
00:18:47
And I read about Black American activists complaining of quote
00:18:52
UN quote black suffering porn or even in academia, people talking
00:18:56
about quote UN quote racial horror porn.
00:18:59
So I mean, it is an ongoing debate.
00:19:02
What do you show? How do you show?
00:19:04
How can you inform, I guess rather than emotionally impact
00:19:10
in a way that is very high strung, but that perhaps easily
00:19:15
abandoned. I don't know.
00:19:17
So I, I think that's it's a really interesting debates and
00:19:20
we will see how Maholi also kind of situates themselves in this.
00:19:26
So back to them. In 2009, they completed an MFA
00:19:30
in documentary media at Ryerson, University of Toronto and
00:19:34
Canada. They also founded in Kaniso, a
00:19:38
non profit organization for queer visual activism and very
00:19:43
importantly, media advocacy. So this is all important because
00:19:48
I mean, and we'll talk about this later, but the idea of
00:19:51
visibility for communities who suffer discriminatory violence
00:19:56
or simply occlusion is a key factor in my Holy's art.
00:20:01
And so, in the same pivotal year, 2009, their mum died of
00:20:05
liver cancer. And a lot of the poetic
00:20:09
self-portrait series called Somniyanan Gunyama, which means
00:20:13
in Zulu or Isuzulu, which I also saw written.
00:20:16
And I forgive me for my complete ignorance.
00:20:21
I, I, I mentioned this because I saw this and I'm, I don't know
00:20:24
how to say it particularly, but I'm going to go with Zulu.
00:20:27
So it means hail the dark lioness, which is so beautiful.
00:20:33
And it immediately makes me think of Beyoncé.
00:20:35
I don't know why, but oh. God, yeah, totally.
00:20:38
Immediately go there and the series started in 2016.
00:20:43
So in that that there are references to their mum through
00:20:48
domestic and cleaning products, for instance.
00:20:50
So Maholi often references mothers of queer people,
00:20:55
praising them and advocating for their recognition and education.
00:20:58
This is going to be a big biographical leap because
00:21:02
throughout the exhibition we will go back and we will go in
00:21:05
detail into other moments of their life.
00:21:08
So in I'll just want to say that in 2022, they created the Maholi
00:21:13
Art Institute, providing teaching through grants and
00:21:16
stipends for students coming from all over South Africa in
00:21:21
Cape Town. So in regards to the career
00:21:25
they've had so far, so they show their work since 2004 all over
00:21:29
the world including the documented 13, the South African
00:21:33
Pavilion at the 55th Venice Pinale and the 29th Sao Paulo
00:21:38
Pinale amongst many other exhibitions recently.
00:21:42
I'm saying this because I know we have quite a few listeners in
00:21:45
France. They show their work at the MEP
00:21:49
Maison European de la Photography, so European Center
00:21:53
for Photography in Paris, and their work is in major
00:21:56
collections across the world such as Murma, Guggenheim,
00:22:00
etcetera. They have had a really
00:22:02
remarkable career, as you say. Yeah.
00:22:04
And I'm just imagining them doing hair at the beginning of
00:22:08
their career, you know, You know, working in the hair salon
00:22:13
and corporate environments. And I think that just gives so
00:22:17
much hope for young artists. Find the seam, find the thread.
00:22:22
Just keep making your way. I mean, not, I mean, obviously
00:22:26
not everyone is going to have this level of success, but it
00:22:29
can feel pretty far away or doing anything artistic could
00:22:33
feel very easily very far away, especially, as you say, when the
00:22:37
subject matter is not easy subject matter.
00:22:39
They entered it through activism.
00:22:41
Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, totally right.
00:22:45
And it's so beautiful. When I was reading their
00:22:48
biography and looking at this Behind the Mask website, right,
00:22:53
that kind of was the entrance into the art world.
00:22:57
So you can always go in through so many aspects.
00:23:01
So yeah, thank you for saying that.
00:23:03
It's really important and success.
00:23:06
What is that? You know, it's not being at the
00:23:09
tape particularly, it's just being able to show your work.
00:23:12
And that's, you know, the the beauty of this, of this story.
00:23:16
Emily, you will take us through the exhibition.
00:23:18
So I'll just introduce a few key notions now.
00:23:23
So the exhibition follows core projects of the artist across
00:23:26
time, starting in the first room with a Doku photographic
00:23:31
projects titled Only Half the Picture, which was started in
00:23:35
2002, the very beginning of their career and which is really
00:23:39
part of their activism work. And the considerable focus of
00:23:44
this room and peace is on survivors of what is called
00:23:46
corrective rape, which is a form of violence on lesbians under
00:23:51
the pretext of healing them from, I mean, healing them.
00:23:54
I say that's really with inverted commas from the
00:23:58
lesbianism through forced intercourse.
00:24:01
So quite a terrifying prospect that is documented in a very
00:24:07
specific way that Emily will talk about for sure.
00:24:11
So this project marks a start of a career where I think that's
00:24:15
that's one of the things that's really also interesting in this
00:24:18
artist where each medium is at the service of a purpose.
00:24:23
And Maholi talks about an agenda, which is sometimes a
00:24:26
word used against wokeism, I guess.
00:24:30
And I think it's quite funny to just say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do
00:24:32
have an agenda. I think that's amazing.
00:24:36
And they call this agenda, or I mean they call their practice
00:24:40
visual activism, which I find an interesting theme considering
00:24:45
how Goldblatt, it was important for them in this poignant
00:24:51
awareness of the insufficiency of the image to tell the story.
00:24:54
Thus, the title of this first series that we see in the
00:24:58
exhibition, only half the picture and also the
00:25:02
documentation, the titles and the texts accompanying the
00:25:04
works. However, and this is a big
00:25:07
change in comparison to their mentor, Meholy does bear
00:25:12
witness, but from the inside, as they are part of the LGBTQIA
00:25:16
plus community, they speak for and also place themselves in the
00:25:20
diverse fabric that constitutes it.
00:25:22
So at the entrance of the show, there's a simple sentence that
00:25:26
speaks volumes about Meholy's modus operandi, which says,
00:25:31
quote, nobody can tell our story better than ourselves, UN quote.
00:25:37
So Emily, you brought up when we met.
00:25:41
So just kind of revealing the conversation we had when we
00:25:44
started talking about the exhibition, you talked about
00:25:47
your relationship with activism. And I am not an activist.
00:25:51
I've participated in ecological, let's say, activism, you know,
00:25:55
occasionally, but I'm not an activist per SE.
00:25:59
You have much more experience in that and you had a take on it
00:26:05
and I was really interested in asking you about it.
00:26:08
Can you share your views a little bit or what we discussed
00:26:10
about where you come? From yeah, no, totally.
00:26:13
I mean, and you know, my activist kind of days are more
00:26:18
behind me than they are in the present, but used to work on,
00:26:22
you know, campaigns, issue campaigns and elections and such
00:26:25
and was was pretty involved in my earlier career.
00:26:30
But I think, you know, that activists art has a bit of a it
00:26:38
is a bit of a clash for me in my mind and you know, because of
00:26:44
that agenda piece and you know, activism is trying to take you
00:26:50
somewhere. It is trying to, it is
00:26:52
persuading, it is documenting, it is telling a story that is
00:26:58
trying to lead you somewhere. When I've done activism on
00:27:03
affordable housing, for example, we want to highlight the fact
00:27:06
that there's a drastic, you know, under servicing of
00:27:10
affordable housing and we want people to care and we want
00:27:14
people to see what we're doing and we want them to then take
00:27:18
action. And I know that, you know, in in
00:27:21
this realm, sort of visual activism could be something
00:27:26
different than writing a legislator about a certain
00:27:29
issue, which is kind of what we were aiming for.
00:27:32
The activism is trying to take you somewhere and art is, you
00:27:36
know, artistry is like, hey, open up your imagination, I'll
00:27:42
open up mine and let's see what happens.
00:27:46
You know, there's like there's a, there's an exchange that
00:27:49
happens within that that feels freer and potentially even more
00:27:57
impactful than look at this thing.
00:28:00
So I, I went in feeling like, I don't know, I'm not sure I'm
00:28:05
going to like it. You know, I mean, the, the
00:28:08
images are beautiful. I don't know if I'm going to go
00:28:11
away feeling how I would, you know, ideally want to feel after
00:28:19
a after, after an exhibition with just so many thoughts and
00:28:21
ideas in my mind. I'll say I, you know, I was
00:28:25
selling myself short and selling Maholi short as well.
00:28:29
The, the last room in particular, which we'll talk
00:28:31
about for me, really soared in that artistic sense.
00:28:36
And the sculpture in the exhibition really soared in that
00:28:40
artistic sense. The photography was primarily in
00:28:44
the rest of the exhibition was documenting things, but it was,
00:28:50
it was, yeah, really enriching nonetheless.
00:28:54
Yeah. That it's, it's well, thank you
00:28:57
for that, because it is an ongoing debate.
00:28:59
You'll have to tell me you're the expert.
00:29:02
Yeah, it should all be political.
00:29:05
You know that We have this conversation.
00:29:07
People have this conversation about activism within the museum
00:29:12
walls. And in the Tate's permanent
00:29:15
exhibition of the collection, there's a whole pot dedicated to
00:29:19
the Guerrilla Girls, for example, who focus solely on
00:29:24
rendering the public aware of how little representation female
00:29:29
artists have had in collections, in exhibitions.
00:29:32
And they throw statistics at you and they throw information at
00:29:36
you. And it is a question should that
00:29:41
be considered art or not? It will still be an open
00:29:44
discussion. I've had my views on it change
00:29:48
consistently throughout the time and I think it's a valid point,
00:29:53
thinking that perhaps the formalisation and the quest for
00:30:01
an aesthetic and a visual language can be undermined by a
00:30:09
message. It is a valid point for sure,
00:30:13
but I also find it really incredible when you have this
00:30:18
position where you are able to hold both.
00:30:21
I mean, photography is this particular medium that has a
00:30:24
very special relationship with reality.
00:30:27
It does cut a piece of reality and bring it onto the image
00:30:31
without providing context. And if you have a bit of
00:30:35
context, then you're bringing to the museum people who wouldn't
00:30:39
be there if it were not for this form of activism.
00:30:45
So there's, there's an open debate and there's lots of
00:30:49
positions about it. And I really like that you
00:30:52
brought that in because I had, I presumed that you being quite
00:30:57
political and working in that area, you'd be all for it.
00:31:02
You know, I just accepted that without questioning it.
00:31:06
And the first thing you said was, I don't know about activism
00:31:10
in the museum. And I thought, OK, well, that
00:31:12
was not that was unexpected. And that's the beauty of having
00:31:16
these conversations. It is, yeah, it really is.
00:31:20
And, you know, even just in that first room when we had this
00:31:24
conversation and where I was talking about how activist and,
00:31:27
and art is, is not necessarily something I gravitate towards.
00:31:33
And, and you were saying, you know, if I correct me if I'm
00:31:38
getting any of this wrong, but you know, your invitation was,
00:31:42
but where else, as you've said, are we going to have time with
00:31:48
these, you know, people that we wouldn't normally be able to
00:31:51
spend time with and to see things you you haven't seen
00:31:54
before and, you know, be able to maybe process and accept them,
00:31:58
which is which is true. And, and I guess whether or not
00:32:01
that's art is a, is a, is the debate within the art world.
00:32:05
But this, this first room is well, first of all, the whole
00:32:10
show is made-up of photographs, but it includes really stunning
00:32:14
sculpture, video, some activists, artifacts and kind of
00:32:18
a historical section about South African history.
00:32:22
It's massive. So there's 7 rooms at the Tate,
00:32:26
and it runs broadly chronologically with their
00:32:31
earlier work at the start. But that first room is work from
00:32:34
Mahali's first series of black and white photographs, only half
00:32:37
the picture, which you mentioned earlier, and it documents
00:32:41
survivors of hate crimes in South Africa.
00:32:44
So at the start of the show, there's that quote that you
00:32:47
mentioned. No one can tell her story better
00:32:48
than ourselves. So they start with a very, very
00:32:52
intimate version of this. I mean, these are
00:32:56
extraordinarily intimate photographs.
00:32:58
I mean, people are often without clothes on, sometimes showing
00:33:01
scars, you know, incredibly intimate moments.
00:33:06
But the identity of all the subjects in the room are
00:33:08
confidential due to privacy issues, as you can imagine,
00:33:13
incredibly important with with victims of domestic violence.
00:33:17
I mean, there's one image of Moholy their legs with slippers
00:33:22
on and a coffee cup. And there's a image of document,
00:33:30
which is a case file for a domestic abuse claim.
00:33:34
You know, you see torsos of trans women who are
00:33:40
transitioning. And so it's really powerful.
00:33:44
I mean, it's A and, and I just, I, I know I keep saying this
00:33:48
word intimate. I mean, even the way they use
00:33:50
the camera, it feels like you are sitting next to these people
00:33:57
or you are almost seeing it from their perspective.
00:34:01
Yeah. So as I mentioned before, there
00:34:03
is text. So there's the titles of the of
00:34:06
the works, there's the image, there's the titles and there's
00:34:10
at times a bit of text. And there were two things that
00:34:13
really struck me in that room. One of them was a photograph, as
00:34:18
you say, very intimate, but from the perspective of the
00:34:22
photographer, getting really close to a body taken from the
00:34:28
chest down with open legs. And then a pad, I think it's a
00:34:33
pad where some tissue on the floor between the feet of the
00:34:38
person with blood. And the texts next to it is
00:34:43
about, I think it's Maholi themself.
00:34:47
And it's about this idea that people think that Butch lesbians
00:34:53
don't bleed and this idea that the Butch lesbian is doesn't
00:34:58
belong to the female arena, as it were.
00:35:04
And they are kind of outside. And it's a really interesting
00:35:08
take because so Moholi developed into seeing themselves as non
00:35:13
binary. And non binary people bleed, you
00:35:17
know, they have female or male genitals, but gender is not
00:35:21
about that. That's the body.
00:35:23
That's a function of some organs of the body for certain people,
00:35:28
and it's a a really good way of starting a conversation about
00:35:33
these things. I think of Tig Notaro, who is
00:35:36
often. So Tig Notaro is a woman.
00:35:38
She identifies as a woman. She's a a female comedian that I
00:35:42
love who has short hair, is a lesbian and often talks about
00:35:48
how she's misgendered all the time and she's very keen on
00:35:52
being seen as seen as a woman who doesn't look like your idea
00:35:57
of a woman. She's very aware of that and
00:36:00
she's quite adamant about it. And I think those things are
00:36:04
very interesting. And so for me, that photo starts
00:36:07
a conversation also about the stigmatization of bleeding for
00:36:12
CIS women. It's not, it doesn't only apply
00:36:15
that that's, that's where for me the activism kind of stops
00:36:19
because I know that there's a very specific context that that
00:36:23
photograph belongs to. But I think it can help more in
00:36:28
a a general awareness of even CIS heterosexual people who have
00:36:35
to hide their bleeding all the time and not talk about it, not
00:36:38
share it with their peers, you know, as they are growing up.
00:36:42
And another thing that really struck me in that room was
00:36:45
there's a vetrine in the middle with documentation specifically
00:36:50
about, I think one of the first times these photos were shown in
00:36:53
South Africa. And there's pages from, you
00:36:59
know, the the the notebook usually have in exhibitions
00:37:04
where you can write feedback. Yeah, that's right.
00:37:08
Yeah. Right.
00:37:10
And you have someone saying this is anti African basically like
00:37:17
the white people brought gayness and brought queerness into this
00:37:24
amazing masculine feminine like strictly masculine and or
00:37:29
feminine space. Which is a terrifying myth
00:37:37
because it's actually the opposite.
00:37:40
I mean, not the opposite in the sense that it was brought to
00:37:43
white people. That's not what I mean.
00:37:45
But the opposite in terms of there is actually history of
00:37:48
queerness in African peoples. So it, it was really interesting
00:37:53
and it was a very clear and way to have someone speak for
00:37:58
themselves. Like this was the person who
00:38:01
wrote this who is there in the exhibition?
00:38:04
They are there, they're featured, their position is
00:38:07
featured and it's not counterbalance by another text.
00:38:13
It's just the whole exhibition kind of is talking to what that
00:38:17
person saying. So I thought there was a very
00:38:20
strong room in that. Sense yeah and that notion of
00:38:26
debunking that myth is is a big one for from a holy I mean
00:38:32
that's mentioned in another room as well in the being room which
00:38:36
we'll talk about but we've dipped our toe into the
00:38:39
exhibition why don't we take a quick break get a cuppa come
00:38:44
back and. Yes.
00:38:45
Explore the rest of this really, really magnificent exhibition.
00:38:51
I'm getting a strong coffee. Thank you so much and we'll see
00:38:54
you in a bit. Welcome back.
00:39:02
We are at Zanel Maholi's exhibition at the Tate Modern.
00:39:06
We have just finished the first room, so the next room is like a
00:39:13
huge galley with huge portraits on both sides.
00:39:18
And this is their faces and phases series.
00:39:22
So according to the text, faces refers to the person being
00:39:26
photographed. They worked with several people
00:39:29
over a long period of time and this is essential to their work.
00:39:33
Is this collaboration and participation?
00:39:36
They never call their subjects subjects.
00:39:40
They are participants in the work, so phases refers to a
00:39:47
transition from one stage of sexuality or gender expression
00:39:51
and identity to another. So the work is seen as kind of a
00:39:55
living archive. You're seeing the same people in
00:39:59
a few, you know, I think sometimes it's just one
00:40:02
photograph, but if they have only met with them once.
00:40:06
But the artist normally works with someone over a period of
00:40:10
time. Started this in 2006.
00:40:12
It's over 600 pieces in whole. There's about 120 pieces
00:40:17
represented in the show. And you see people changing, you
00:40:23
know, they're aging, they're wearing different hairstyles,
00:40:28
different clothes, they're expressing themselves over, you
00:40:33
know, different ideas in their lives.
00:40:37
And it's really, you know, it's it's lovely to see those
00:40:41
transformations in very pedestrian ways that we all
00:40:46
change. And also in some of the more
00:40:48
dramatic changes in terms of, you know, their gender
00:40:52
expression in particular. Yeah, I it's funny because rigid
00:40:57
me read the text first, which I don't do all the time.
00:41:01
But you know, having seen the previous room, I thought, OK,
00:41:04
it's important to maybe know the context right away.
00:41:06
And the text is very prominent and it's part of the
00:41:09
installation and and their exhibition.
00:41:11
So, you know, I thought it was the thing to do.
00:41:14
And so I read the text and then I was like, OK, great.
00:41:19
Turn to the photographs. It's a a big two very long walls
00:41:23
filled with portraits. And I started looking and
00:41:27
thinking, I'm going to see this progression, this visual
00:41:32
explanation, almost kind of a visual advocating for the
00:41:38
freeing of identity and self-expression.
00:41:42
But the way it's installed, you don't really.
00:41:47
You don't have a beginning and an end for each person
00:41:50
photographed. So I was a bit disturbed by
00:41:52
that, as I told you before. So I went twice.
00:41:55
So the first time I went there, I was really troubled by that
00:42:01
display and I asked myself a lot of questions because I couldn't
00:42:06
recognize anyone. I was unsure.
00:42:08
Because of me, there were single portraits of very different
00:42:11
people. You can trace back the zanella
00:42:15
somewhere there, and you recognize them really well.
00:42:18
They have this incredible face, an incredible presence.
00:42:25
And then you can recognize a few people.
00:42:27
And I just thought how how weird that you can't do I have face
00:42:32
blindness? You know, I was asking myself
00:42:35
lots of questions. And I also, you know, probably
00:42:40
if you listen to the episode about Dido Moriyama, that I have
00:42:44
some misgivings with photography, particularly with
00:42:47
portraiture. I find that it often feels like
00:42:52
butterflies pinned onto a, you know, a surface and then framed.
00:42:59
I have a hard time with that. There's this idea that somehow
00:43:02
your, your, your surface, your skin, your appearance, the shape
00:43:06
of your eyes says stuff about you.
00:43:09
And I'm so against that idea of, you know, being too visual about
00:43:14
people and personalities and what they stand for.
00:43:18
And, and the second time, I went with you.
00:43:21
So you helped me through the process and you made me
00:43:26
understand that it was actually really beautiful to lose the
00:43:29
thread and to understand that we are all together.
00:43:34
We're kind of intertwined. And maybe I'm you and maybe
00:43:37
you're me. I mean, that's how I read it the
00:43:39
second time around. And maybe we are all kind of
00:43:43
connected and not just these identities, which is what anti
00:43:48
woke. I mean just saying this for lack
00:43:51
of better expressions. People are, you know, saying
00:43:54
like, oh, you're so focused on yourself, you're self
00:43:57
identifying and you know, you're being so egotistic.
00:44:00
And here it's just saying, no, we're just a fabric of
00:44:04
togetherness. And of course we have our own
00:44:07
personal histories and we have our own specificities, but we're
00:44:11
also part of this fabric of this huge net around the world, but
00:44:19
also very locally in this space. So I also learned in the
00:44:24
exhibition that after the apartheid, South Africa had
00:44:28
really progressive laws regarding same sex marriage and
00:44:33
the recognition of queerness. They were the the 5th country I
00:44:39
think to recognise same sex marriage.
00:44:42
However, it's also the country that has the most violence,
00:44:46
queer hate crimes. So there's a big discrepancy
00:44:52
between the law and the social reality.
00:44:57
So it's even more, it's even more courageous, I think, to to
00:45:01
be out there and to have a portrait in that context of
00:45:05
yourself as, you know, framed in such a way.
00:45:09
So that was my journey, yeah. No, I hear.
00:45:14
You sorry it was too long. Not at all.
00:45:15
Not at all. I mean, I think, yeah, a
00:45:18
portraiture can leave me a little flat as well.
00:45:23
And but I think, you know, kind of sitting with with it and what
00:45:30
you said I think is something I came away with too, was just the
00:45:34
courageousness and the context within which these portraits are
00:45:38
being taken is enormous. I mean, South Africa, they have
00:45:43
South Africa as a through line, yeah, in their entire, in the,
00:45:47
in their entire exhibition and their work.
00:45:50
But the fact that you can see, you know, a bit of a journey
00:45:55
that some of these folks are taking is, is really phenomenal.
00:46:00
And I think, you know, looking at that as a, you know, a
00:46:04
heterosexual white woman who has not had to think about so much
00:46:13
about their sexuality, about my gender orientation because the
00:46:18
entire world was like, you know what?
00:46:19
You're cool. That's true.
00:46:23
You know, I mean, I I didn't that sort of mirror, I didn't
00:46:27
have to do the hard looking and really cultivate that for
00:46:32
myself. And it was, which I think we
00:46:37
should. I mean, I think, you know, I
00:46:40
think there's, there's so much there there to explore, you
00:46:44
know, about one's sexuality and gender identification, even if
00:46:49
you are someone who's sort of like me, identifies with the
00:46:54
status quo more or less, you know, I mean, you know, I think
00:46:59
of this all the time. It's like, you know, I'm a
00:47:01
heterosexual woman, therefore I'm attracted to men.
00:47:04
But really there are so few men I am attracted to.
00:47:08
I mean, like, if you really think about it, you know, it's
00:47:11
like, so, So is that what sexuality is?
00:47:15
I don't think so. So, but, but going back to the
00:47:18
exhibition, I think that's, it's such a gift to experience that
00:47:24
on some level and through these portraits of people exploring
00:47:28
that for themselves and demonstrating that for
00:47:30
themselves in such a, in such a, you know, definitive way.
00:47:36
And the other thing that Maholi works with is the gaze.
00:47:41
They are really tuned into that notion of the gaze and.
00:47:50
Absolutely. And, and when I was looking at
00:47:55
the images, they are all really confident.
00:47:58
They are all looking back at me with a with a clarity and not
00:48:04
confrontation, but a real conviction about who they are.
00:48:08
There's maybe one or two that look a little bit timid in their
00:48:13
countenance, but that feels very intended.
00:48:18
You know, I don't think I don't think you could get that that
00:48:21
sort of feeling of here I am and this is it and go ahead and have
00:48:27
a look. You couldn't get that if it
00:48:30
weren't sort of really crafted into the.
00:48:33
Work, they, they travel all over.
00:48:37
There's this love for South Africa as well.
00:48:40
I know some people that live there or they're all from there,
00:48:43
and you always hear about the violence and you always hear
00:48:47
about especially Joburg, Johannesburg, you know, as being
00:48:52
like having areas where you can't go.
00:48:55
What's beautiful about these videos is that so Moholy goes
00:48:59
everywhere and they work with the people that are photographed
00:49:04
in the way that is very collaborative and affirmative.
00:49:09
And there's this notion of going towards people that found their
00:49:14
safe space as well. And there's never this idea of
00:49:18
fear of violence. And it's an incredible work
00:49:22
behind the camera that takes place.
00:49:25
And I also like with all the reticence I have with
00:49:28
photography, I also like this idea that that sometimes I think
00:49:32
of the exhibition as just the place where the artwork lands
00:49:39
for a certain time. But the artworks and the art
00:49:42
projects have a life of their own outside of the exhibition
00:49:46
space and will continue to have a life of their own outside of
00:49:50
the exhibition space. And I think you feel that really
00:49:53
well in this exhibition. Yeah, no, that's a good point
00:49:57
because it is so place based. Their context is South Africa
00:50:04
and we'll go further into different places and there's a
00:50:08
real evolution of place that happens throughout the
00:50:12
exhibition itself, which we definitely will talk about.
00:50:18
But I think that's right. I think there's, there's such a
00:50:22
a feeling of place throughout it that it's hard to you.
00:50:26
You can't, you can't pull that apart from the work.
00:50:29
And you can imagine it naturally living in, you know, in other
00:50:34
places. So, yeah, no, I think that's
00:50:37
that's really true. I hadn't thought about that as I
00:50:40
was walking through it. But I think you're absolutely
00:50:42
right. That aliveness that it has
00:50:46
beyond the beyond the tape. So the the portraits, the
00:50:50
portrait room leads to a room that's entitled being.
00:50:55
It depicts couples and everyday acts of intimacy between some
00:50:59
lovers, between friends. And these are really beautiful
00:51:04
images. I mean, again, very intimate,
00:51:06
like the first room, but you know, where the first room is,
00:51:09
you know, documenting survivors. This is much more kind of
00:51:14
positive and loving and and in a very natural way.
00:51:19
So the artist is keen to dispel this myth, as you mentioned,
00:51:23
that persisted that colonialism brought homosexuality to Africa
00:51:27
and it doesn't didn't exist before then.
00:51:30
When in fact, you know, there was even a story on the in the
00:51:34
text about certain people that were celebrated that could like
00:51:40
a woman in certain tribes that would have many wives, you know,
00:51:45
I mean, and that this is part of the folklore.
00:51:49
And so the images you see are really stunning.
00:51:52
Vaseline on the lens and some to make a very kind of blurred, a
00:51:58
blurred effect and and there's kind of, you know, intimate
00:52:02
shots in bedroom setting. There's but there's just like
00:52:06
kind of people being together and touching in a friendly or
00:52:12
intimate way, bathing or kissing.
00:52:15
And it's just really heart warming.
00:52:19
And there is a giant sculpture of the full anatomy of a
00:52:24
clitoris in the room as well. Which is.
00:52:28
Which is truly. Yeah, which is great.
00:52:31
Which is. Which is a joy.
00:52:33
Yeah. It's such a joy.
00:52:35
It looks like a bird. Yeah.
00:52:38
A little bird it does it. Kind of does.
00:52:41
There's a hole in the middle, like really circular and
00:52:44
perfect. Yeah.
00:52:46
And you can go around it, there's some flaps, and it's
00:52:49
bronze, so it's super heavy. Yeah, but it doesn't feel heavy
00:52:55
at all. It just feels like it's going to
00:52:58
flop its wings and fly somewhere in the orgasmic vibration.
00:53:05
Yeah. Totally Oh my God, and it's it's
00:53:08
black and gold, you know, and it you can walk all the way around
00:53:13
it and really, you know, get close to it and it kind of has
00:53:16
four points that meet the ground and it looks like it might just
00:53:21
just like crawl away. It might just it might just get
00:53:25
up and like move to another room.
00:53:28
Go go check another room out or something.
00:53:31
They are such a talented photographer and yet then can
00:53:37
produce something like that. It's.
00:53:39
Such a talent. Such a talent and.
00:53:42
Such a leap in literature. You're always reading about the
00:53:44
female genitals as a whole, as a whole, to be like a void right,
00:53:51
to be penetrated or entered. And here there's a whole
00:53:56
consistency. And even just like the clitoris
00:53:59
is often thought of as one small point.
00:54:02
And what's you know this is this is really showing the the full
00:54:06
anatomy of it of a much more complex Organism.
00:54:10
Yeah, the nerve ending that is kind of rhizomatic and and so,
00:54:16
yeah, it's great. So moving on to the next room
00:54:21
after this joyful discovery. And then now we get into a a
00:54:27
section that's called queering public Space.
00:54:31
So the artist is showing images of transgender women, gay men,
00:54:38
gender non conforming place people in places, intersex.
00:54:41
People. Yeah.
00:54:43
And these are people who are on the beach.
00:54:47
They're on, you know, kind of Constitution Hill, I think was a
00:54:52
kind of a famous place in Joburg where some of the images were
00:54:58
taken. But the, the point is, is that
00:55:01
people are they're kind of full expression of themselves really
00:55:04
beautiful. Some of the shots using sort of
00:55:07
sweeping fabric and reflections. And so the, the artistry of the
00:55:13
photography is, is great. It's bringing the expression of
00:55:19
gender nonconformity and in all of its arrays to the public
00:55:24
sphere, which is which is cool. And that, that I might like the
00:55:27
most, is the giant image that covers one entire wall that's
00:55:33
taken at the beach. And it's maybe like a dozen
00:55:37
transgender women in bathing suits on their knees, kind of in
00:55:41
1/2 horseshoe shape, getting their picture taken.
00:55:45
And most of the beach, the beach is packed with people.
00:55:50
It's absolutely packed with people.
00:55:52
And most people are just sort of unawares and are doing their
00:55:56
thing. But there's a few people that
00:55:58
are sort of walking by or nearer that are having a little second
00:56:02
glance. And, you know, some of them are
00:56:05
just like, oh, wow, you know that?
00:56:07
And some people have a bit more curiosity washed across their
00:56:11
face. But yeah, it's just, it's a
00:56:14
great image. And in the middle there is a
00:56:16
beautiful again, a beautiful sculpture of a person lying down
00:56:21
on the ground with a blanket over them and two bolsters under
00:56:26
their head. Are they sleeping?
00:56:29
I think they might be sleeping but I I liked.
00:56:32
I have done wait they are sleeping.
00:56:35
Yeah, and I just love. And it's Zanel Maholi
00:56:39
themselves, because they have such a distinctive face.
00:56:42
So you can see it's them the the sculpture is bronze again.
00:56:47
So they say that they use bronze.
00:56:49
Because I was really curious about that.
00:56:52
I was like, why? Why?
00:56:54
Because these pictures in this room all have people who
00:57:02
improvise, construct, build their outfits through found
00:57:09
objects, not found objects, but objects that wouldn't be used
00:57:15
for clothing. So there's this kind of
00:57:18
tradition of drag Queens particularly to make their
00:57:22
garments from what they can find.
00:57:24
Why is culture in such a traditional, especially when
00:57:27
you're looking at this kind of improvised, makeshift aesthetic,
00:57:32
Why bronze? You know, it's such a
00:57:33
traditional European language and material.
00:57:38
And so they say that they use bronze because they want to make
00:57:41
sure that these queer images are not going to go anywhere and
00:57:45
they're going to last forever and they're going to be in
00:57:47
history. And suddenly by hearing that, I
00:57:51
remembered all these texts that I've read about people
00:57:55
complaining about the lack of archives.
00:57:58
So I found that really interesting because again, it's
00:58:01
working in the present to make sure that in the future history
00:58:05
will be constructed differently. So that that's really
00:58:09
interesting. As well, I think, and I heard, I
00:58:13
heard that they wanted bronze to match some of the European
00:58:20
statues that are bronze. Like think of Trafalgar Square,
00:58:24
think of, you know, any square in Europe.
00:58:26
And that there was an exhibition, I think it was in
00:58:30
Paris where these bronze sculptures were outside in the
00:58:35
manner that you might see man on a horse commanding, you know,
00:58:39
his army. That would be really wonderful
00:58:42
to see, you know, outside of the exhibition space and the white
00:58:46
cubes of, you know, galleries across Europe and really out
00:58:51
into the central square where they can be celebrated in the
00:58:55
same manner that. So I mean, I walk by those in
00:58:59
London all the time, those big bronze sculptures of men.
00:59:03
And I'm like, who is this guy exactly?
00:59:06
It's I've never heard of him, you know, I mean, and, you know,
00:59:11
it's like, and but they're all the same.
00:59:13
They're all sort of, you know, heroic figures and some kind of
00:59:17
army garb of one time or another.
00:59:20
And fine, they did important things, but, you know, other
00:59:24
people. It would be great to see other
00:59:26
versions of that. Someone put on Instagram like
00:59:29
who is great enough to be immortalized in stone or bronze?
00:59:36
I think no one maybe shall we stop doing this?
00:59:40
You know? And it was an interesting take,
00:59:43
but I cannot not tell the story of an Angolan artist called
00:59:48
Kilwanji Kiya Henda. And he did something amazing,
00:59:53
which was that in Luanda, I think it's Luanda in Angola,
00:59:56
there's this empty plinth where a sculpture of some Portuguese
01:00:01
historical figure was portrayed by a statue there.
01:00:05
And so it was taken down after the independence of Angola,
01:00:10
though he did a whole project over there which was to invite
01:00:15
people. To, I think, spoken word people
01:00:20
of queer communities, but not only to take the plinth and
01:00:28
perform there, perform on the plinth.
01:00:30
And I thought it was such a beautiful idea, which is this.
01:00:34
You are a temporary sculpture while you're still alive.
01:00:38
And then you go about your life and you are imperfect for sure,
01:00:42
but what you do and what you perform is the important thing
01:00:47
about you. It's your action.
01:00:49
And I thought that was so interesting.
01:00:52
And now we're looking at these bronze sculptures of the artists
01:00:56
themselves. So again, self-expression, which
01:01:01
is not about being heroic. Great.
01:01:03
So the next room we have is called Brave Beauties.
01:01:07
And so we've gone from a public space to a curated audience
01:01:14
space. So in this room, there's a lot
01:01:17
of a lot of pageant holders, you know, people who've been part of
01:01:24
beauty pageants and they have the sashes or people who are
01:01:29
replicating poses from like a fashion magazine cover, you
01:01:33
know, in a swimsuit, you know, knee high in the water, you
01:01:37
know, that kind of thing. And so you're going from, you
01:01:42
know, the the places where people might be around and might
01:01:46
be looking at you to you have an audience here in these images.
01:01:50
And I love a beauty queen. I mean, I there is something so
01:01:58
beauty pageants themselves, checkered history, all of it.
01:02:03
I get it. You know, I get that it's a
01:02:05
performance of gender that isn't always healthy, but there is
01:02:09
something about the vulnerability of that goes into
01:02:13
those pictures and also something very empowering about
01:02:18
people who have been denied access to those taking some
01:02:23
taking up space in that in in that realm.
01:02:25
In that room there's a video, and the second room, so the
01:02:28
following room, there's another video where these beauty Queens
01:02:33
speak for themselves. And then people who of that
01:02:38
LGBTQIA community that Zanella Mahali brings to the museum or
01:02:46
to exhibition spaces speak for themselves and for their own
01:02:50
experience. And they're so diverse.
01:02:54
I think one of the good things that it does, I think this
01:02:57
exhibition, is to explain how diverse queerness is and how
01:03:03
horrifying it is when you reduce it to just one aspect of it, and
01:03:10
how conflicting some of these positions are as well.
01:03:13
I mean, so, so you're talking about sharing stories, which is
01:03:16
the activists video, some of whom were involved.
01:03:19
Sorry, yes. In the In the Faces and Phases
01:03:23
project. So they're telling stories about
01:03:25
how they're improving lives within the queer community.
01:03:29
And I think what was important about that too is because of the
01:03:33
stigmatization of queer people. I mean, this is in South Africa
01:03:39
for sure, where it seems to be more pronounced.
01:03:41
But I'd say everywhere how just just watching people talk about
01:03:49
how they're caring for their communities just seems so
01:03:53
logical when people start thinking about the trans issues
01:03:57
and gender fluidity. And, you know, it can feel like
01:04:02
turbulent waters and watching those stories, it's just people
01:04:08
talking about caring about people.
01:04:11
I mean, it's just, there was just something just so and and
01:04:15
who wouldn't want to be a part of that?
01:04:18
And yeah, so I, I just, I mean, they're, they're just regular
01:04:22
videos, literally camera on a person from the shoulders up
01:04:27
talking primarily. And it was just so relatable on
01:04:32
just a regular human level that I found really nice.
01:04:36
And it positions yourself in the role of the listener, which is
01:04:40
something that is not happening a lot nowadays, to just listen
01:04:46
to experiences and just maybe pay attention and realise that
01:04:52
they're not your experience. You don't have to understand
01:04:55
everything, but understand in the sense that like partake in
01:05:00
whatever that experience is, but you can accept it as it being a
01:05:04
possibility just by listening, you know, just by paying
01:05:08
attention. And because I think it also
01:05:10
positions the spectator into this network of caring.
01:05:15
As I was reaching this point the first time I went, I started
01:05:20
looking at people around me and thinking, oh, you know, what are
01:05:25
these people thinking about this?
01:05:27
There was this feeling if we're all here kind of listening and,
01:05:31
and looking and, and watching. And also in this context of
01:05:36
beauty, I think there's also this idea of beauty that is
01:05:41
being questioned, the restricted notion we have.
01:05:46
And I say we, you know, all societies in different ways have
01:05:51
beauty, which is such a constricted and small space
01:05:54
where only, you know, 2% of the population can fit.
01:06:00
And here suddenly it's like it's been opened up and extended.
01:06:04
And, you know, the fact that they were a hair stylist at some
01:06:07
point made me think of a story I read.
01:06:09
I think it was in The New Yorker.
01:06:11
I don't know when, what context, but it was this person who had
01:06:14
been a makeup artist in this shop, in the shopping center
01:06:17
where they, you know, people come and they can be made-up.
01:06:20
And they were saying by doing that and spending so much time
01:06:23
on people's faces, I ended up by just by the time I had to spend
01:06:29
with them to find everyone utterly beautiful.
01:06:34
And I just thought, wow, that's what I felt in this exhibition,
01:06:41
the following room. OK, right.
01:06:43
Oh, here we go, the explosion. Because this is where a gear
01:06:48
shift happens, and yeah, it absolutely unfolds into a new
01:06:56
territory. So as we've talked about, the
01:07:00
nature of the exhibition thus far has been helping the viewer
01:07:06
enter into worlds and view things they might have not seen
01:07:12
before. But it has a documentary thread
01:07:16
through it. In this last, well second to
01:07:20
last room technically, the artist explodes into, to my
01:07:25
mind, a place where they are like, go where your mind and
01:07:30
imagination are going to take you.
01:07:33
They're not trying to show you something you wouldn't see
01:07:39
before. It's their own history and deep
01:07:44
psyche being expressed. And hey, where does your deep
01:07:51
psyche go when you see this? You know they are working with
01:07:54
the gaze. All of these images are the
01:07:59
artist. They are painted in really dark
01:08:05
skin tone, much darker than their own.
01:08:09
And there's a lot of wardrobe happening I guess is maybe a way
01:08:17
to put it. They're black and white
01:08:19
photographs. Exactly.
01:08:20
They're black and white photographs and they are dealing
01:08:25
more with racial identity here and they are magnificent.
01:08:30
Yeah. OK, so they are a photographer,
01:08:35
an activist, a sculptor, and the way they bring their presence to
01:08:42
these images as a model, you cannot look away.
01:08:46
I was so blown away by this room.
01:08:49
The blackness of the skin is emphasized, so they I think they
01:08:53
paint themselves or they emphasize it in post production.
01:08:57
The the lips sometimes are painted white and the white of
01:09:01
the eyes is emphasized as well. So there's this important
01:09:06
statement about colorism as well.
01:09:09
The idea of colorism is that you can go up to a certain point in
01:09:13
blackness, but from a certain point onward.
01:09:16
But there's no way that's going to be deemed beautiful or even
01:09:20
photographed because one of the reasons there weren't many black
01:09:23
actors in cinema for a long time is that, oh, it's so hard to
01:09:26
film. Yeah, very dark people, you know
01:09:29
so. Lighting is difficult.
01:09:31
Lighting, you know, and here you have the the darkest of ducks
01:09:37
and it's arresting, you know, to say that.
01:09:40
But also the Meson San is incredible.
01:09:42
So I find this room very overwhelming because there is so
01:09:46
much work on to each image. There's one, I'm not sure it's
01:09:51
there. It's when I was researching this
01:09:53
project where they were talking about the intricateness of
01:09:58
blackness and of ethnicity and they were saying like, where are
01:10:02
the Afro Afro Japanese people, for example?
01:10:05
What about them? And so they clothed themselves
01:10:08
in a kimono and like stuck these I think we're hair and pins that
01:10:17
would would be Japanese like. So a lot of the imagery is
01:10:21
confusing. You don't know exactly what it's
01:10:23
saying. It's complex and you can spend
01:10:26
an hour, you know, looking at each image quite.
01:10:30
There's one where there's and we spent some time in front of it.
01:10:35
The artist enveloped in bicycle tires and the expression they
01:10:42
have is always very difficult to read, is usually quite stern,
01:10:47
but not always deep. It's very deep and concentrated.
01:10:51
And so I read about this, that picture that they were relating
01:10:55
to a particular event, and they were also thinking back to the
01:11:03
fact that there was something called, and I hope I'm not
01:11:07
misremembering, I think it was called necklacing, which was to
01:11:11
put tires around black people and setting them on fire and
01:11:16
thus killing them, obviously in the most horrendous of ways.
01:11:20
Again, a horrifying thing that is not identified as such.
01:11:26
So that's also, I think one of the strengths of I think an
01:11:30
artwork is when it's very personal, but also not wanting
01:11:35
to give away all the history behind it.
01:11:38
There is a variation of reactions that you can have to
01:11:42
it according to your own background.
01:11:46
And I found it really interesting, Emily, that you as
01:11:49
an American will react to the imagery in with your particular
01:11:53
history. Do you want to talk about it?
01:11:55
Sure. Yeah.
01:11:56
So minstrel shows, yes, which was in the 20s, thirties, maybe
01:12:04
even later. It erupted from vaudeville, and
01:12:06
it was where white actors would put blackface on and mimic black
01:12:12
behavior in a really racialized, horrible way.
01:12:15
There were some gestures that they used in some of the images
01:12:20
that reminded me of that. So in a couple of the images,
01:12:23
they wore bright gloves, which is a common thing in minstrel
01:12:28
shows. And some of the some of the
01:12:32
facial expressions also kind of there were a couple with very
01:12:36
wide eyes and obviously just the black painted skin that was
01:12:41
accentuating darkness of the skin.
01:12:44
And that's what minstrel shows did.
01:12:46
And there's so much American art from, you know, that African
01:12:51
American artists make that reference that as well.
01:12:55
I mean, one kind of somewhat recent example is Donald Glover
01:13:00
has Childish Gambino in his This Is America video, and he kind of
01:13:06
dances around in sort of a minstrel show kind of way.
01:13:10
But but yeah, so there was definitely echoes of that in
01:13:14
some of the images. So some of the background is
01:13:18
that their mother was a domestic worker and a lot of the
01:13:26
wardrobe, I guess in the images reflect that.
01:13:31
So there's one with a lot of clothes pins all around and they
01:13:38
are wearing a rug, like a rug you'd find on the floor around
01:13:43
their shoulders and it's clipped with clothes pins.
01:13:47
And there's one where they're wearing a really elaborate sort
01:13:53
of woven straw, bit of straw rope, I guess, around the neck.
01:14:01
And their hair is high. And perched on top of their hair
01:14:05
is a stool, like a short stool. Oh, yes, yes.
01:14:09
That you might sit on to clean the floor.
01:14:13
And I was looking at that. And with all of the images, they
01:14:19
are so arresting in their gaze. I mean, they're, you cannot not
01:14:23
look at these and everything about the backdrop.
01:14:27
And I, I can just imagine how many hours it took to craft
01:14:31
these images and get together because they are just full as
01:14:36
full can be. But looking at this and
01:14:38
thinking, you know, it's, it's a bit ridiculous in a sense that
01:14:42
they have a stool on their head and yet there is nothing funny
01:14:48
or whimsical about it at all. It is conveyed with power and
01:14:54
intention. And you, you engage with that
01:14:58
visual in such a different way. I feel like they could have,
01:15:03
they could have just veered off a little bit and it would have
01:15:06
felt like, but they they just kept to the power of the gaze.
01:15:12
I didn't think of that. That's so true because I as you
01:15:15
were speaking, I was thinking it's very humorless.
01:15:18
The the exhibition and the subjects, well, not subject
01:15:23
participants in the portraits are the ones bringing humor.
01:15:28
Should that be their personality?
01:15:32
But as an Elma holy themself has this seriousness and this
01:15:38
sternness and it while we were talking, it made me think of
01:15:44
Hannah Gatsby and her show and Nanette where she completely
01:15:50
upturned the deflection by humor of your weirdness or your
01:15:56
difference, which is something that you do to protect yourself
01:16:00
but also end up by negating your identity by making fun of it.
01:16:07
Then there was a lot of talk about that in stand up comedy
01:16:11
where, you know, if you're fat, you make fun of being fat.
01:16:15
If you're this, you make fun of being this.
01:16:18
And yeah, I did not think of that.
01:16:19
But it's even in the videos I watched of Holy, they're always,
01:16:24
they have this very deep presence, you know, this very
01:16:30
aware presence of others. And that's one of the reasons
01:16:34
that they decided to do self portraiture because they said in
01:16:38
this process of caring for others, you end up kind of like
01:16:41
not including yourself in there. And it's a way of including
01:16:45
themselves and kind of looking inward and to their own history
01:16:48
and how it kind of resonates with whatever's happening in the
01:16:51
world. And and so that's kind of the
01:16:55
missing point. And as you say, I agree it is
01:16:58
the strong point of the exhibition because there's this
01:17:03
point where also like the sculptures, where suddenly
01:17:09
there's a sublimation of an aesthetic, a language that is
01:17:13
being created in front of your eyes.
01:17:15
And photography has that very moving thing when it's when
01:17:20
there's a meson San, which is that you know that the person
01:17:23
picked those elements very carefully, put them on, took
01:17:26
some time, put on the makeup and you know, kind of like took this
01:17:31
whole time to get to that point. Yeah, Yeah, the I agree.
01:17:36
I agree. I mean, I think that that that
01:17:38
room really felt like it opened my mind in a way and my
01:17:46
imagination and took me into something in a yeah in a way I
01:17:53
didn't expect. And I wasn't sure what happened
01:17:56
in quite a documentary style exhibition, but yeah, it was, it
01:18:04
was fantastic. And there's a there's apparently
01:18:06
a book of all of those self portraits.
01:18:09
They have been working on that since 2012.
01:18:12
So there might be a lot of additional images that weren't
01:18:15
in the exhibition itself. Yeah, yeah.
01:18:19
So yeah, I'm. I'm here for it.
01:18:21
So I propose that we wrap this up.
01:18:24
This was really enjoyable. But I have one last question for
01:18:28
you, which is what was your highlights of exhibition Estas
01:18:35
during 2024? Because it's the only year we've
01:18:38
existed, but it's been a whole year on the 27th of January I
01:18:42
think will be a whole year. So what's your If you had to
01:18:45
pick one thing, what would be your highlight?
01:18:51
So. One thing.
01:18:53
I'm so sorry I put you on the spot.
01:18:55
Yeah. Boy, you know, Philip Guston was
01:18:59
the one, the first one that I researched.
01:19:01
And so that has a very strong presence in my mind.
01:19:06
And that exhibition was I I thoroughly enjoyed it.
01:19:11
But yeah, I mean, I think that one, but also I would say Zainab
01:19:21
Salah. Oh yeah, you did.
01:19:25
Something for me, I mean, there was just something, you know,
01:19:28
it's funny, looking back, I was quite ill and didn't know it and
01:19:32
was tired all the time and was looking at her images of, you
01:19:37
know, peacefulness and rest and, you know, the cat on the carpet.
01:19:43
And I was like, oh, you could just take a nap down there.
01:19:46
And so I remember it with it being, you know, it being
01:19:52
something that was probably speaking to me in a way that I
01:19:55
didn't even understand at the time.
01:19:57
She is at David. Vanna's gallery.
01:20:01
No, no. Yeah, exactly.
01:20:02
Now back at you, girl. Which one?
01:20:05
Oh damn. Oh, sorry, I was so focused on
01:20:09
asking you the question that I didn't think that I would have
01:20:11
to answer it. Gosh, highlights of 2024, when I
01:20:17
look back, what comes to mind immediately?
01:20:21
That's a good exercise. I think Yoko Ono was was a big
01:20:32
one for me. I was.
01:20:35
So it was a powerful experience as an exhibition.
01:20:38
It was really great to find out more about someone I had so many
01:20:47
wrong ideas about. I had listened to a podcast
01:20:52
about her, so I knew about a little bit more about her, but
01:20:55
it wasn't focused on the artwork and just being able to rewrite
01:21:00
history for myself while realizing that I had Grapefruit
01:21:08
the book in my home all this time and didn't even realize.
01:21:13
I mean, I did, but it do you know when you know?
01:21:16
I love the feeling that the podcast gives me of knowing
01:21:20
something that actually I didn't know and then really spending
01:21:25
time with it and finally assimilating it because you have
01:21:30
a lot of data in your head, but spending time with certain
01:21:35
things and choosing a specific angle on them really brings them
01:21:40
home and makes you assimilate things that you didn't
01:21:44
otherwise. And I also love Dido Moriyamas
01:21:49
because. Oh, hello, that's unexpected.
01:21:53
I, I love the feeling of making an effort to go beyond my likes
01:21:59
and dislikes. And that was a huge 1.
01:22:02
And it was the first time. So yeah, that was, that was a
01:22:07
big one for me where I also kind of like put into practice this
01:22:13
principle of being very open. And even if it's not something
01:22:19
that emotionally works 100% for me and is my personal fold,
01:22:27
let's say like the way I'm made and and the thing that I will be
01:22:30
drawn to. I loved opening myself up to a
01:22:34
context to to a story, to something behind it.
01:22:39
Yeah, that was yeah, that was really powerful.
01:22:44
This is the great thing about exhibitions, is it not?
01:22:47
It's like somebody you think you know and you can reorient
01:22:52
yourself to them, like Yoko Ono or maybe even Mike Kelly.
01:22:57
But then also it's like somebody who don't know that sort of
01:22:59
reorients things inside your own heart and mind and psyche and
01:23:05
spirit. Yeah, it's there's, there's
01:23:09
nothing else quite like it. There isn't.
01:23:12
Absolutely. So that said, it's time to wrap
01:23:17
up. Thank you so much, Emily.
01:23:18
Thank you for this. This is the first episode of
01:23:21
2025. Here's hoping for, well,
01:23:25
surprising. It's going to be 2025.
01:23:28
We know that now since 2020, nothing, you know, no year is
01:23:32
like the the previous in this in this decade.
01:23:36
But here's hoping that we'll have some incredibly exciting
01:23:39
episodes. I know we will.
01:23:41
Thank you all for listening. Thank you for sticking with us.
01:23:44
Here's to another year of Exhibition Missus.
01:23:46
Exactly. Happy New Year everyone, and
01:23:48
happy New Year, Jovana. See you too.
01:23:51
And we'll see you soon. Thanks so much.
01:23:54
See you soon. Bye, bye, bye.
01:24:36
Music.