Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta, Ext. 2, Lakeside, Johannesburg Circa 2007 © Zanele Muholi
This is an image from prominent South African artist, Zanele Muholi’s extensive series of work on the politics of the black female form. A graduate of the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, Muholi has always focused a great deal on issues of female sexuality and identity. A lesbian herself, Muholi’s work has often attracted severe criticism, and at times straight rejection, as a result of the bold, intimate gaze that her camera seems to cast on the naked female form.
Take for instance the recent bruhaha sparked by our Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana who stormed out of Muholi’s exhibition opening labeling the images ‘pornographic’ and ‘immoral.’ Xingwana’s department was due to speak at the opening given that her department had contributed R300 000 toward the event. The minister’s reaction is telling of the contradictions that inform the way in which society views the female body.
Whether plastered on giant advertising billboards, in magazines, film or art – the fact remains the female body is everybody’s business. Listen to Muholi as she discusses her latest exhibition in which she poses nude in one of Amsterdam’s red-light districts: TimesLIVE Podcast: The black female form under scrutiny
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