Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness

By Elin Spring

How can a single artist reproach centuries of ingrained injustice? How can they simultaneously offer hope for an equitable future? South African “visual activist” Zanele Muholi has mounted a stunning, often agonizing, deeply layered, and altogether dazzling artistic plea for a fair and inclusive society. Using her own body as a palette to carefully represent marginalized groups (including her own), Muholi has become “them” literally and symbolically. “They” are fearlessly embodied in Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness, an exhibit of more than 80 photographic self-portraits now on view at the Cooper Gallery of Harvard University in Cambridge, MA through June 1^st, 2020.

Installation image from Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness solo exhibit by Zanele Muholi at Cooper Gallery in Cambridge, MA. (photo by Elin Spring)

Zanele Muholi with curators, gallery directors and event photographer at the Cooper Gallery opening reception, standing before Muholi’s image “Thuleleni, Amsterdam, 2018” (Photo by Elin Spring)

Installation view of “Phila I, Be Well or Live, Parktown, 2016” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York. (Photo by Elin Spring)

Muholi’s striking, larger-than-life, B&W portraits recognize that a painful punch is best delivered with a velvet glove. The images are breathtaking, and mesmerizing enough to draw the viewer into the somber recesses of their insinuations. To amplify the significance of race, Muholi darkens their skin by pumping up contrast in post-production, with the added effect of intensifying their direct, penetrating gaze at the viewer. With the artist adorned in pointedly symbolic garments and accessories and with image titles in Muholi’s native isZulu language, viewers could understandably miss allusions to South African colonialism, Apartheid, Zulu subjugation, and indigenous violence toward LGBTQ individuals. But all knowledge aside, Muholi’s visually gripping images strike right at the gut. Their implications are inescapable: we are all party to history, we are all responsible for changing the narrative now. It is a powerful message, spelled out in black & white.

“Ntozakhe II, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2016” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.

“Hlonipha, Respect, at Cassilhaus, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2016” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.

“Bester I, Mayotte, 2015” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.

At first glance, Muholi’s clever use of props may fool you into thinking their images are playful. In truth, they are sly invitations to often painful narratives. There are those that celebrate proud Zulu legend, like the lioness in “Somnyama Ngonyama II” (Feature Image) or the reclamation of freedom in “Ntozakhe II,” Muholi’s own Lady Liberty. But there are far more like the “Bester” series (based on Muholi’s mother), thick with irony about domestic servitude under British colonial rule; images probing western ideals of beauty, such as “Ntozabantu VI,” about the first black “Miss South Africa,” with gleaming crown and shiny, straightened tresses; and those recalling demeaning customs like “the pencil test” used in South Africa to determine whether one was considered black or white, as in “Nolwazi II.”  Too many of the images reverberate with echoes of conditions in the United States.

“Ntozabantu VI, Parktown, 2016” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.

“Nolwazi II, Nuoro, Italy, 2015” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.

Muholi indicts a tear-stained trail of grievous injustices, from endemic, racially biased imprisonments to brutal “blood” mining practices, from violence against gender non-conformers to the foreign squandering of Africa’s natural resources. To insure they hit their mark, the photographs are graphically gorgeous and meticulously orchestrated to appear neither angry nor dangerous. In every stinging, resplendent image, Muholi’s stare tethers past to present and male to female, asserting Zulu culture, and above all, the primacy of human dignity.

“Phaphama, Awake, at Cassilhaus, North Carolina, 2016” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.

For more information about this exhibit, go to: https://coopergallery.fas.harvard.edu/somnyama-ngonyama

Feature Image: “Somnyama Ngonyama II, Oslo, 2015” © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York.