CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/15/2020

240 pages of remarkable trans art in 'Kiss My Genders'

Zanele Muholi's "Phila I, Parktown" (2016) is reproduced from Kiss My Genders, the Hayward Gallery's critically-acclaimed exploration of—and challenge to—traditional gender categories. For Muholi, photography is "a space for people to be visible, respected and recognized." In the Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness self-portrait series from which this work is drawn (2012–present), Muholi uses everyday, domestic materials—including rubber gloves, clothes pegs and scouring pads—to craft elaborate costumes or backdrops that hold deep psychological importance. "Muholi has deliberately altered the contrast of these black-and-white images in order to enhance the dark tones," Lucy Biddle writes. "Speaking of this series, Muholi has said: 'I'm reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other.'"