A self-described visual activist, Zanele Muholi (b. 1972, Umlazi, South Africa) uses the camera to explore issues of gender identity, representation, and race. Often photographing their own body or members of their LGBTQ+ community in South Africa, Muholi calls attention to the trauma and violence enacted on queer people while celebrating their beauty and resilience. Activism is central to Muholi’s artistic practice, from their early work contending with the dangers of being queer in South Africa to their more recent work embracing their own blackness and gender expression. This exhibition brings together photographs from 2002 to the present alongside the artist’s latest explorations in painting and sculpture. The first major exhibition of Muholi’s work on the West Coast, it provides the opportunity for Bay Area audiences to experience the full range of the artist’s expansive project.

“‘Eye Me’ is a meaningful, gorgeous exploration of Black, queer lives in South Africa … The most pressing question I left with: How do I express how urgent it is for audiences to see this show?” — Tony Bravo, San Francisco Chronicle