Rejected at home, honour beckons abroad

Controversial South African lesbian photographer, Zanele Muholi may be an irritant at home, but abroad honour appears to be in view as she has been nominated for the Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award, in France.

 Muholi's work, celebrating lesbian Africans in a portrait, which features select faces across the continent.

 Muholi, whose work, sometimes looks like a lift from Playboy or porn movies, is also exhibiting at the festival in Arles, France, from July 2 to September 23, 2012. The work, which earned her the nomination, according to the photo artist “is a visual exploration of ‘making / mapping / preserving radical black lesbian and queer  (LGBTI: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) visual history in post-Apartheid South Africa.”

 Just few months ago, the queer photo artist lost several works of about five years to theft in South Africa, a situation romoured to have been sabotage carried out by her detractors to frustrate her.

  However, the photographer appears to be making stronger impact abroad, where her ‘immoral and disgusting art’ is being celebrated. She is also showing at Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, July 12 – 31 August.

  Her Faces and Phases series, a gathering of portraits – a wall of 60 large-scale lesbian and transgender subjects from several African countries are on display at dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel Germany this summer.