Kanye Nawe

Kanye Nawe: A Philosophy of Shared Presence

Kanye Nawe is a major solo exhibition by Sir Zanele Muholi that brings together landmark photographic series and recent bronze sculptures spanning more than two decades of the artist's practice. These bodies of work trace Muholi's sustained commitment to visual activism and reshape contemporary understandings of Black Queer visibility, intimacy, self-representation, and community.

The exhibition’s title is an isiZulu phrase meaning "with you," "alongside you," or, in its broadest sense, "oneness." I initially believed this to be a simple translation. That changed during a conversation with Muholi across time zones, while I was in Valencia for the Gay Games and they were in Mexico City for World Pride – both of us continuing the work of archiving Queer lives. When I asked about the title's meaning, Muholi responded by singing a gospel melody familiar to many Black mothers in moments of mourning and joy, prompting laughter and tears over the phone. In that moment, the title transcended language, revealing a deep sonic and ancestral resonance, and a philosophy of shared presence that anchors Muholi’s practice in collective authorship and acts of solidarity. Across its diverse formats, the exhibition unfolds through this spirit of togetherness, suggesting that identity is forged through continual exchange with ancestry, place, and those around us.

Central to the exhibition istheportraiture series, Faces and Phases (2006–ongoing). Conceived as a counter-narrative to the enduring legacies of colonialism and Apartheid, the project responds to what Gabeba Baderoon, drawing on Pumla Gqola, describes as "hostile visibility"[1]: the contradiction between progressive constitutional protections and the persistent violence faced by Black Queer people. Muholi initiated the project in 2006 – a watershed year marked by the passage of South Africa’s Civil Union Act, which legalised same-sex marriage.

Questions of loss and remembrance come into sharper focus in Mo(u)rning (2012) emerged in the wake of a suspicious burglary that stripped Muholi of years of archival material documenting hate crimes, discrimination, and the experiences of Black LGBTQIA+ people. The series reflects on those lost to violence while insisting on the importance of preserving their histories. Life and death, love and hate, grief and resilience exist in constant tension throughout the work, while simultaneously holding on to the promise of “morning” – the inescapable hope held in the arrival of a new day.

In Somnyama Ngonyama (2012–ongoing), Muholi becomes both participant and image-maker, using photography to explore race, labour, gender, sexuality, memory, and representation. The series interrogates how the gaze has historically informed perceptions of Black identity. By asking what it means for a Black person to look back, Muholi shifts the balance of power embedded within portraiture: the self-portrait becomes an act of agency through which the artist refuses objectification, returns the viewer's gaze, and asserts the right to define themself on their own terms.

By digitally increasing the contrast of each image, they deepen the richness of their skin tone, reclaiming a Blackness they describe as being "continuously performed by the privileged other." Ordinary domestic objects drawn from their immediate surroundings become integral to these self-portraits, carrying the historical weight of Black labour and collective trauma. Working alongside Muholi, I have seen how instinctively these materials are claimed. A stray plastic rope found on a walk is reimagined as a headdress, garment, or ceremonial adornment – not because it is formally compelling, but because it evokes a particular social and political reality. By recasting materials associated with systemic servitude as regal forms of adornment, the series becomes an act of ancestral reclamation, confronting enduring legacies of colourism and racism through the artist's own image.

Muholi's sculptural practice extends these ideas beyond the photographic frame. Among the works is a double portrait honouring a decades-long relationship grounded in collective care, activism, and the shared pursuit of equality and social justice. Elsewhere, life-size bronze figures of Muholi translate the concerns of Somnyama Ngonyama into three dimensions, reclaiming the material language of patriarchal monumentality in honour of Black Queer lives.

Ultimately, Muholi’s oeuvre is driven by a commitment to asserting the enduring visibility of Black Queer existance. Now entering its third decade, this evolving practice continues to build a lasting testament to the communities it honours. The full spectrum of Kanye Nawe emerges by folding inward in Somnyama Ngonyama (“I am with myself”), turning toward intimacy and kinship in Only Half the Picture, Being, Mo(u)rning, and ZaVa (“I am with you”), and expanding into collective solidarity in Faces and Phases (“We are here together”). In doing so, the exhibition asks not only how these lives are remembered, but how they are carried forward.

[1] Baderoon, Gabeba. How to look. In Bonani Africa 2010 Photographic Festival Conference: Papers and Abstracts. South African History Online, 2011.

[2] Fourie, Gabriella Louise. "Facing Up to Queer Representation: Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases Series, a Tool for Visual Activism". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2024. P1

Text by Andile Msomi
______________________________________________________________________

For press queries, please mail [email protected]