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Zanele Muholi
147 Plays1 month ago
We start this brand new year with an incursion into South Africa, with Zanele Muholi’s magnificent solo show at Tate Modern.
Shockingly, Emily and I broke our own rules and actually visited the show together… which turned out to be quite productive.
After a hilarious take on Gladiator II by Emily, we explore Muholi’s unique path into activism, photography, curated exhibitions, sculpture, and self-imagery.
Muholi's work focuses on queer communities in South Africa through a form of what the artist calls "visual activism". But there is also self-portraiture, as the artist is part of this LGBTQIA+ diverse fabric. For Muholi, their use of the pronouns they/them goes way beyond gender identity. It recognises past histories, visible and invisible, and identity as multitude. Muholi says ‘There are those who came before me who make me.’
To know more about the exhibition: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/zanele-muholi
You can follow them on Instagram too: @muholizanele
If you'd like to have visual content about the episodes, follow us on Instagram too: @exhibitionistas_podcast
You can support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/exhibitionistaspodcast/membership
Music by Sarturn.
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Transcript
Introduction to Exhibitionistas
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to exhibitionistas with me, Joanna, and my spectacular co-host, Emily. This is a conversational podcast where we discuss the body of work of an artist as seen through their solo exhibition. We're based in London, and our motto is we visit exhibitions so that you have to. It doesn't even have to be the exhibition we talk about, especially if you live far, far away from London.
00:00:36
Speaker
And by the way, if you do, why not start an exhibition is this club where you live? It could be fun.
Breaking the Rules at Tate Modern
00:00:43
Speaker
So we start this brand new year with an exhibition I've had my eye on for a while. Zanele Moholy's solo show at Tate Modern. Shockingly, Emily and I broke our own rules and we actually visited the show together.
00:00:58
Speaker
We'll let you know what the outcome was in the episode. After hilarious take on Gladiator 2 by Emily, we explore Moholy's unique path into activism, photography, curated exhibitions, sculpture and self-imagery. Their last series Somniamma Ngoniamma almost. left as speechless. It's an exploration of the self and self-representation as plurality. From Moholy, their use of pronouns they them, so they are non-binary, goes way beyond gender identity.
00:01:33
Speaker
They acknowledge their ancestors and the many ways their identity can be constructed, but mostly identity as multitude.
Zanele Moholy's Identity and Activism
00:01:46
Speaker
Moholy says, there are those who came before me who make me.
00:01:50
Speaker
And I can certainly see where they come from. We are made from all the visibly recorded histories behind us, but also for the ones that didn't make it to the present and remained invisible and untold. And this exhibition is very much about the latter. So let's do this. Come visit Moholy's exhibition with you chatty white ladies.
One Year of Exhibitionistas
00:02:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Exhibitionistas. Emily here, art lover and exhibition goer. Thanks to all the folks who've been with us for the past 12 months. Yes, one year. It has been a sincere pleasure to be in your company over the past year of this podcast and a huge warm welcome for all who are joining for the first time.
00:02:48
Speaker
If you're new here, Emily and I visit solo exhibitions so that you have to, or so that you can vicariously enjoy them through us. We share our points of view, but we also provide a bit of context and background by researching the artists.
Shared Insights at Tate Modern
00:03:05
Speaker
I'm Joanna, independent curator and writer and artistic director of Drawing Now Paris. It's a pleasure and a privilege to be in your eardrums.
00:03:15
Speaker
And we have a show for you today that is extra special. You might even say rule breaking. So we're going to discuss Zanele the Holy show at the Tate Modern, which is going to be around until the 26th of January. So there's lots to talk about there. But the reason it's rule breaking is that Joanna and I were there, dum, dum, dum, together. Shocking! I know, I know. And it was it was so great. So obviously this is a first for the podcast. Usually we see them separately and we don't talk about them. We have a golden rule of not talking about them until we're here together on the podcast to sort of trade notes and perspectives. But it feels appropriate that, you know, as we're going into one year that we saw the show together, which is why the podcast was born in the first place.
00:04:07
Speaker
Indeed. Yeah, it seemed right and for me in many ways it felt like a two-for-one deal on an exhibition because it's like I went through first on my own and then again with you, Joanna, and my mind was opening and was kind of experiencing the show anew in a very short space of time. So that was great.
00:04:31
Speaker
Likewise, I have to say it was really productive to have a chat with you. We had a chat right at the entrance because I had seen the show before and it really woke me up and it kind of excited me and and and tuned me into things that I thought for you would be a given. So I was surprised by what you said and we may discuss this later on, but it was productive.
Future Exhibition Plans
00:04:54
Speaker
Maybe we can stop doing it again.
00:04:58
Speaker
I think occasionally, yeah, we should. Occasionally. Yeah, when we can. I think it would be really good to have the odd exhibition that we see together. So here it is, dear listeners, live. We are redefining the rules.
Cultural Experiences and Reflection
00:05:12
Speaker
That's it. So before we get into it, Joanna, how was your week in culture?
00:05:17
Speaker
Well, not very rich in that respect, I have to say. um I've been reading a few things, but for work, um didn't finish them. But we did something really cool, which was to try to celebrate the winter solstice. So, I mean, in some ways, it is a cultural thing, isn't it?
00:05:36
Speaker
Our daughter, Konstanza, who we interviewed for the special special episode of the festivities. um edit Family edition. edition. So she taught us about the pagan celebrations around the solstice. And so we ate a really nice meal. Simple, but really nice and heartwarming meal cooked by her and her brother Artem. And we told stories at the table.
00:06:04
Speaker
So what do pagans eat? Not very versed on that, but I do know that there's some baking, there's some bread going on. So Concha baked a bread with some um dried fruits in it. there was It was irish so ah an Irish soda bake, I want to say. ok The other thing you do is that you do a fire, so you sit around the fire, you decorate um a branch or a tree, a little bit like the Christmas tree comes from there actually. right um So there's a lot of things going on and obviously we couldn't do most of them because we were too busy and everything's geared towards the 24th and the 25th, right? So we didn't manage to do much, but just the fact of being there
00:06:50
Speaker
together. We actually celebrated it on the 22nd because we can do it on the 21st. We were invited to friend's house. ah So winter solstice is the shortest day in the year and the longest night. And just this idea of you know being there and at night in the dark with candlelight and just telling stories around the table is such a nice, simple thing to do, just spending time together.
00:07:20
Speaker
um So I hope we continue next year. It was really grounding and and magical. and And you think of just like how long humans have been doing that, sitting around a fire, exchanging stories, you know? I mean, that's it. thing that That's it. It goes deep, right? I mean... Yeah, yeah very deep. You're right. That's exactly how it felt. So yeah, that was my little cultural moment.
00:07:46
Speaker
moments Yeah, so I would say very rich then it was a very rich it was very rich. How about you?
Humorous Critique and Insights
00:07:53
Speaker
Well, I'm curious not so rich not so uplifting I saw I saw gladiator to just like don't ask why it's like no, it's more than two hours long Joanna to know more than two long hours plus So I liked the first one, but then I realized I was fully half my age when that thing came out. And this got some good reviews and Peter was Cain, but it was so, so bad. Just swords endlessly clanking. You know those sword fights that just take forever? Clank, clank.
00:08:33
Speaker
clank just kill each other like somebody get a gun please I think they should hire you for the sound effects next time and just like heroic slow-mo and then yeah
00:08:49
Speaker
when their buddy dies or whatever. It's just a different version of the same movie. So the Russell Crowe character in this one has a wife, they're going into battle. she's a warrior She's a warrior as well. And it's like they exchange rings before the battle. This is my ring and for you, it will be with you forever. And this is my ring and it will be with you forever. And I love you, wife. I love you, husband. It's just like,
00:09:18
Speaker
Oh my God. That was like the opening and I was like, oh my God, I'm never going to make it. It's just humorless. It is completely, it takes itself so dead seriously for something that is so preposterous. And I mean, sorry, I just have to say so.
00:09:38
Speaker
the Colosseum. They used to flood it apparently in real life like and have boats and they would fight from the boats. like That was the thing. Really? They used to do it in the Colosseum. In this, they had a scene where it was flooded and they had sharks in there. No, you're kidding. You went and got some seawater then? and mean No.
00:09:59
Speaker
I mean, it was just ah CGI sharks. Yeah. they own There was the only bright spot was Denzel Washington. Like he was. a joy to watch. He played this really kind of conniving political, you know, kind of maneuvering guy. And he was, he was really, he was, he, he made the two hours bearable, at least. So you got 30 minutes out of it when he was there in the scene, and that's it.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, the whole two hours. and I did take an extended bathroom break in the middle and sort of walked around the lobby and looked at the posters, you know. Oh, so I take it you were not entertained! Oh, nice! Ow!
00:10:49
Speaker
nice oh but But Zenel Moholy, very, you know, that's a bright spot and we get to talk about that. So that's, that's good news. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the artist?
Moholy's Identity and Safe Spaces
00:11:02
Speaker
Sure, absolutely, with great pleasure. So I'll just start by saying that we will mention ah sexual assault in detail, um related particularly with queer communities. So if this is not for you today, dear listener, and if you haven't listened to all our episodes, dig into our portfolio. Just skip it this time. um For example, the Sufiana Barbary episode also touches upon brown queerness, trans and gender non-conforming people.
00:11:31
Speaker
in a completely different way that might be more suited for you. So go there and if you have listened to all of the episodes, bravo and thank you. and you know I visited this show twice, just a side note, and the first time it made me think of the American photographer Nan Golden.
00:11:50
Speaker
of how gently she celebrated an invisible community of people living at the very edge of the queer and artistic New York society she was part of when AIDS, but also obviously a certain recklessness of nightlife and drugs, ravaged their joie de vivre, which is the least you can say about it. um Her book, I'll Be Your Mirror, titled I'll Be Your Mirror,
00:12:17
Speaker
had the same effect on me as a young adult ah than Boy George had when I was a kid. ah It just opens ah so many possibilities. um But I digress, as there are parallels with Zanele Maholi,
00:12:34
Speaker
um but also a specificity in the latter that is unique to South Africa, which is where the artist lives and works. So Zanele Moholy is a South African artist, ah born in 1972 in Umlazi, Durban. They go by the pronouns they-them, so they identify as non-binary. They were the youngest of a family of eight kids, ah four of which died, so they're now only four.
00:13:04
Speaker
And Moholy talks about recently having had help from their sister in their artistic work as a great way of bonding. So family is really important to them, and also this idea of safe spaces, which we'll encounter in the exhibition, and also maybe the exhibition as a safe space, I think it's fair to say, right?
00:13:24
Speaker
yeah um So their mom was a domestic worker of Zulu descendants who lost her husband, the artist's father, shortly after they were born. So Moholy speaks Zulu and is very connected with the tribal history of their people. But also um in on a wider perspective, they recognize South Africans in general and their other languages and tribal descendences.
Activism and Photography as Documentary
00:13:55
Speaker
So in their 20s, Moholy lived in Johannesburg, um working in different corporate jobs and also as a hairstylist until they began working for the website Behind the Mask, which featured stories of rape, harassment, abduction, ah particularly in the queer community that were hardly mentioned in the mainstream media.
00:14:21
Speaker
Such important work. I mean, you know I know that this is a South Africa context, but it just makes me think of there's a lot of work happening in the States around Native communities and women who've been disappeared and abducted and raped, murdered, et cetera, but it has not even penetrated at all. These things gain momentum and visibility. It's so impressive that they were there at you know at an early time.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. And also the fact that they're doing it um in the present, as opposed to say, for example, in Ireland, all the horrors that were inflicted on mothers out of wedlock, for example, that we're kind of reckoning with now, but we are kind of correcting history. Whereas here, it really is in the present and it's such a such a strong thing to do and and and and difficult as well and dangerous as we we will see. So continuing this strand of activism, in 2002 they founded FEW, so Forum for the Empowerment of Women, which could be pronounced few, which I find interesting, I don't know how they say it.
00:15:34
Speaker
So it's an association providing protection for women and advocating for their safety. In 2003, they enrolled in the Market Photo Workshop Gallery, which was a photography school founded in 1989 by the South African photographer David Goldblatt, who mentored them.
00:15:55
Speaker
So Moholy often mentions him and his generosity. I seem to remember that ah David Golblat even helped them financially. So I hope I'm not saying anything wrong, but I have this idea.
00:16:11
Speaker
because I remember in a video I watched Moholy saying that, and then quoting ah Zulu Proverbs saying, one hand washes the other, meaning that helping others creates a chain of support, and this was directly related to David Goldblatt, but also obviously to the community that they're um showcasing and and rendering visible. That one hand washes the other, it runs right through the exhibition as well.
00:16:41
Speaker
I mean, there's there's so many collaborators and participants. There's a letter from people that meet them at different points in their work. that That's absolutely true. and And because of that, I think I just want to say a few words about Goldblatt. So he was a white man of Lithuanian Jewish descent, so his family fled the persecutions of Jews in Europe in the 1890s.
00:17:06
Speaker
So his photography, unlike anti-apartheid activists, was not focused on the violence but on the people. um He did not consider himself um a social or, well, more specifically a political fighter, but a photographer who thought really hard about the power of photography in this particular context, but also the failings of photography.
Influences and Artistic Balance
00:17:30
Speaker
So um I think he was a bit criticized by his activist friends at the time for not being, let's say, overtly um activists ah in in his work. Because what he did, I mean, his choice was to photograph people, their work, their life, and to provide extensive labels explaining the context in exhibition space or say in publications. He followed, for example, Black
00:17:59
Speaker
workers who had to endure very long and exhausting bus rides to work in the city, which was the effect apartheid had. So he focused more on the way people were affected by segregation rather than the violence inflicted on them segregated, which is I think something we're still debating today, you know, the role of images. um I think I've mentioned this before in regards maybe to Ariadne, the episode where we focused on her exhibition at the ICA, because I always remember being very struck by um the moment when George Floyd's video, ah I mean, George Floyd's death murder,
00:18:43
Speaker
um ah video was circulating and I um read about black American activists complaining of quote-unquote black suffering porn or even in academia people talking about quote-unquote racial horror porn so I mean it is ah an ongoing debate what do you show how do you show how can you inform, I guess, um rather than emotionally impact in a way that is very high strung, but that perhaps easily abandoned. I don't know. um So I think that's it's a really interesting debate, and we will see how Moholy also kind of situates themselves
00:19:25
Speaker
in this. So back to them. In 2009, they completed an MFA in documentary media at Ryerson University of Toronto in Canada.
Queer Visual Activism and Hope
00:19:35
Speaker
They also founded Incaniso, a nonprofit organization for queer visual activism and very importantly, media advocacy. So This is all important, because i mean and we'll talk about this later, but the idea of visibility for communities who suffer discriminatory violence or simply occlusion is a key factor in Maholi's art. and so In the same pivotal year, 2009, their mum died of liver cancer.
00:20:07
Speaker
um And a lot of the poetic self-portrait series called Somnianan Gunyama, which means in Zulu or Izu Zulu, which I also saw written and i ah forgive me for my complete ignorance. um i I mentioned this because I saw this and i I don't know how to say it particularly, but I'm going to go with Zulu. So it means hail the dark lioness, which is so beautiful. And it immediately makes me think of Beyonce. I don't know why. but Yeah, totally. go that um And the series started in 2016, so in that that there are references to their mum through domestic and cleaning products, for instance. So Moholy often references mothers of queer people praising them and advocating for their recognition and education. This is going to be a big biographical leap because
00:21:02
Speaker
Throughout the exhibition, we will go back and we will go into detail into other moments of their life. So in I'll just want to say that in 2022, they created the Moholy Art Institute, providing teaching through grants and stipends for students coming from all over South Africa.
00:21:21
Speaker
in Cape Town. So in regards to the career they've had so far, so they show their work since 2004 all over the world, including the Documenta 13, the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and the 29th São Paulo Biennale amongst many other exhibitions. Recently, I'm saying this because I know we have quite a few listeners in France um They show their work at the MEP, Maison ah European de la Photographie, so European Centre for Photography in Paris, and their work is in major collections across the world, such as MoMA, Guggenheim,
00:22:00
Speaker
et cetera. They have had a really remarkable career as you say. Yeah. And I'm just imagining them doing hair at the beginning of their career, you know, you know working in the hair salon and corporate environments and I think that just gives so much hope for young artists. Find the seam, find the thread, just keep making your way. i mean not I mean, obviously not everyone is going to have this level of success, but you can feel pretty far away, or you doing anything artistic could feel very easily very far away, especially, as you say, when the subject matter is not easy subject matter. They entered it through activism.
00:22:41
Speaker
yes yes Yeah, totally right. And it's so beautiful when I was reading their biography and looking at this behind the mask website, right? That kind of was the entrance into the art world. So you can always go in through so many aspects. So yeah, thank you for saying that, it's really important. And success, what is that? You know, it's not being at the Tate particularly, it's just being able to show your work. And that's, you know, the the beauty of this of this story. Emily, you will take us through the exhibition. So I'll just introduce a few key notions now.
Visual Activism and Storytelling
00:23:23
Speaker
So the exhibition follows cool projects of the artists across time, starting in the first room with a Do-Q photographic project titled Only Half the Picture, which was started in 2002, so the very beginning of their career, and which is really part of their activism work.
00:23:42
Speaker
um And the considerable focus of this room and piece is on survivors of what is called corrective rape, which is a form of violence on lesbians under the pretext of healing them from, I mean, healing them, I say that's really with inventive inverted commas.
00:23:57
Speaker
um from their lesbianism through forced intercourse. So quite a terrifying prospect um that is documented in a very specific way that Emily will talk about for sure. So this project marks a start of a career where I think that's that's one of the things that's really also interesting in this artist, where each medium is at the service of a purpose. And Moholy talks about an agenda, which is sometimes a word used against wokeism, I guess. And I think it's quite funny to just say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do have an agenda. I think that's amazing. and They call this agenda, or I mean, they call their practice visual activism.
00:24:42
Speaker
ah which I find an interesting theme considering how goldblatt was important for them in that this poignant awareness of the insufficiency of the image to tell the story, thus the title of this first series that we see in the exhibition, only half the picture, and also the documentation, the titles and the texts accompanying the works. However, and this is a ah big change in comparison to their mentor,
00:25:10
Speaker
Moholy does bear witness, but from the inside, as they are part of the LGBTQIA plus community they speak for, and also place themselves in the diverse fabric that constitutes it. So at the entrance of the show, there's a simple sentence that speaks volumes about Moholy's modus operandi, which says, quote, nobody can tell our story better than ourselves, unquote.
00:25:37
Speaker
So, um Emily, you brought up when we met, so just you're kind of revealing the conversation we had when we started talking about the exhibition. You talked about your relationship with activism, and I am not an activist. I've participated in ecological, let's say, activism you know occasionally, but I'm not an activist per se.
Activism in Art: Persuasion vs. Exploration
00:25:59
Speaker
You have much more experience in that. and you had a take on it. um And I was really interested in asking you about it. Can you share your views a little bit or what we discussed about where you come from? Yeah, no, totally. I mean, and you know, my activist ah kind of days are more behind me than they are in the present, but used to work on, you know, campaigns, issue campaigns and elections and such and was was pretty involved in my earlier career. But I think, you know, that
00:26:31
Speaker
Activists art is a bit of a clash for me in my mind. um And you know because of that agenda piece, and you know activism is trying to take you somewhere. it is trying to It is persuading, it is documenting, it is telling a story that is trying to lead you somewhere. When I've done activism on affordable housing, for example, we want to highlight the fact that there's a drastic under servicing of affordable housing. And we want people to care and we want people to see what we're doing. And we want them to then take action.
00:27:19
Speaker
And I know that, you know, in in this realm, sort of visual activism could be something different than writing a legislator about a certain issue, which is kind of what we were aiming for. The activism is trying to take you somewhere.
Debating Activist Art's Impact
00:27:35
Speaker
And art is, you know, artistry is like, hey, open up your imagination. I'll open up mine and let's see what happens. You know, there's like,
00:27:48
Speaker
there's ah There's an exchange that happens within that, that feels freer and potentially even more impactful than, look at this thing. So I went in feeling like, I don't know, I'm not sure I'm going to like it, you know? I mean, the the images are beautiful.
00:28:10
Speaker
I don't know if I'm going to go away ah feeling how I would you know ideally want to feel after a after after an exhibition with just so many thoughts and ideas in my mind. I'll say I you know i was selling myself short and selling Maholi short as well. the The last room in particular, which we'll talk about for me, really soared in that artistic sense. who And the sculpture in the exhibition really soared in that artistic sense. The photography was primarily, in the rest of the exhibition, was documenting things.
00:28:50
Speaker
But it was it was, yeah, really enriching nonetheless. h Yeah, that it's it's well, thank you for that, because it is an ongoing debate. You'll have to tell me, you're the expert. Yeah, it should all be political.
Activism in Museums and Transformative Art
00:29:05
Speaker
you know that We have this conversation, people have this conversation about activism within the museum walls, and in the Tate permanent exhibition of the collection, there's a whole plot dedicated to the guerrilla girls, for example. We focus solely on rendering the public aware of how little representation female artists have had in collections, in exhibitions, and they throw statistics at you and they throw information at you. and
00:29:38
Speaker
It is a question, should that be considered art or not? It will still be an open discussion. um I've had my views on it change consistently throughout the time, and I think it's a valid point, thinking that perhaps the formalization and the quest for an aesthetic and a visual language can be undermined by a message. It is a valid point for sure, but I also find it really incredible when you have this position where you are able to hold both. I mean, photography is this particular medium medium that has a very special relationship with reality. It does cut a piece of reality and bring it
00:30:30
Speaker
onto the image without providing context. And if you have a bit of context, then you're bringing to the museum people who wouldn't be there um if it were not for this form of activism. So there is there's an open debate and there's ah lots of positions about it. And I really liked that you brought that in because I had, I presumed that you being quite political and working in that area, you'd be all for it. you know I just accepted that without questioning it. And the first thing you said was, I don't know about activism in the museum. um And I thought, okay, well, that was not, that was unexpected. And that's the beauty of having these conversations. It is, yeah, it really is. And you know even just in that first room, when we had this conversation and where I was talking about how activist and and art is is not necessarily
00:31:30
Speaker
something I gravitate towards. And and you were saying, you know if i correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong, but you know your invitation was, but where else, as you've said, are we going to have time with these you know people that we wouldn't normally be able to spend time with and to see things you you haven't seen before and you know be able to maybe process and accept them, which is which is true. and And I guess whether or not that's art is ah is a is the debate within the art world.
00:32:05
Speaker
But this this first room is, ah well, first of all, the whole show is made up of photographs, but it includes really stunning sculpture, video, some activists, artifacts, and kind of a historical section about South African history. It's massive. So there's seven rooms at the Tate.
00:32:26
Speaker
And it runs broadly chronologically ah with their earlier work at the start. But that first room is work from Moholy's first series of black and white photographs, only half the picture, which you mentioned earlier. And it documents survivors of hate crimes in South Africa. So at the start of the show, there's that quote that you mentioned, no one can tell her story better than ourselves. So they start with a very, very intimate version of this.
00:32:54
Speaker
um I mean, these are extraordinarily intimate photographs. I mean, people are often without clothes on, sometimes showing scars, ah you know, incredibly intimate moments. But the identity of all the subjects in the room are confidential due to privacy issues, as you can imagine, incredibly important with with victims of domestic violence.
00:33:17
Speaker
I mean, there's one image of Moholy, their legs with slippers on and a coffee cup. And there's an image of a document, which is a case file for a domestic abuse claim. You know, you see torsos of ah Trans women who are transitioning and so it's really powerful I mean it's a and and I just I know I keep saying this word intimate I mean even the way they use the camera um It feels like you are sitting next to these people or you are almost seeing it from their perspective I
00:34:01
Speaker
Yeah. So as I mentioned before, there is text. So there's the titles of the works. There's the image, there's the titles, and there's at times a bit of text. And there were two things that really struck me in that room. One of them was a photograph, as you say, very intimate, but from the perspective of the photographer getting really close to a body taken from the chest down with open legs, and then a pad. I think it's a pad with some tissue on the floor between the feet of the person with blood. And the text next to it is about, I think it's Moholy themself, and it's about this idea that people think that butch lesbians don't bleed.
00:34:55
Speaker
and this idea that the butch lesbian is doesn't belong to the female ah arena, as it were, and they are kind of outside. um and It's a really interesting take, because Moholy developed into seeing themselves as non-binary, and non-binary people bleed. you know They have female or male ah genitals, but Gender is not about that. That's the body. That's a function of some organs of the body for certain people. And it's ah ah a really good way of starting a conversation about these things. I think of Tignotaro, who is often... So Tignotaro is a woman. She identifies as a woman. She's a a female comedian that I love, um who has short hair.
00:35:46
Speaker
he is a lesbian and often talks about how she's misgendered all the time and she's very keen on being seen as seen as a woman who doesn't look like your idea of a woman. She's very aware of that and she's quite adamant about it.
00:36:03
Speaker
And I think those things are very interesting. And so for me, that photo starts a conversation also about the stigmatization of bleeding for cis women. it's not It doesn't only apply. that that's That's where, for me, the activism kind of stops because I know that there's a very specific context that that photograph belongs to. But I think it can help more in a general ah awareness of even cis ah heterosexual people who have to hide their bleeding all the time and not talk about it, not share it with their peers you know as they are growing up. And another thing that really struck me in that room was there's a vitrine in the middle with documentation
00:36:49
Speaker
ah specifically about I think one of the first times these photos were shown in South Africa and there's um pages from, ah you know, they the the notebook you usually have in um exhibitions where you can write feedback Yeah, that's right, yeah. Right? And you have someone saying, ah this is anti-African, basically. like The white people brought ah gayness and brought queerness into this amazing masculine-feminine, ah like strictly masculine and or feminine.
00:37:30
Speaker
ah space, which is a ah ah of terrifying myth because it's actually the opposite. um I mean, not the opposite in the sense that it was brought to white people. That's not what I mean, but the opposite in terms of there is actually history of queerness in African peoples. So it was really interesting and it was a very clear and ah way to have someone speak for themselves.
00:37:59
Speaker
like this was the person who wrote this, who is there in the exhibition. They are there, they're featured, their position is featured, and it's not um counterbalanced by another text. It's just the whole exhibition kind of is talking to what that person's saying, so I thought there was a very strong room in that sense. Yeah, in that notion of debunking that myth is a big one for Moholy. That's mentioned in another room as well, in the Being Room, which we'll talk about
00:38:37
Speaker
but we've dipped our toe into the exhibition. Why don't we take a quick break, get a cuppa, come back and yes explore the rest of this really, really magnificent exhibition. I'm getting a strong coffee. Thank you so much. And we'll see you in a bit.
00:39:00
Speaker
Welcome back. We are at Zenelle Moholy's exhibition at the Tate Modern. We have just finished the first room. So the next room it is like a huge galley with huge portraits on both sides. And this is their Faces and Faces series. So according to the text, Faces refers to the person being photographed They worked with several people over a long period of time and this is essential to their work. It's this collaboration and participation. They never call their subjects subjects. They are participants in the work.
00:39:45
Speaker
So phases refers to a transition from one stage of sexuality or gender expression and identity to another. So the work is seen as kind of a living archive. You're seeing the same people in a few, you know, I think sometimes it's just one photograph, but if they have only met with them once,
00:40:06
Speaker
But the artist normally works with someone over a period of time. So I started this in 2006. It's over 600 pieces in whole. There's about 120 pieces represented in the show.
00:40:20
Speaker
And you see people changing. you know They're aging. They're wearing different hairstyles, different clothes. They're expressing themselves over you know different ideas in their lives. And it's really you know it's It's lovely to see those transformations in very pedestrian ways that we all change and also in some of the more dramatic changes in terms of you know their gender expression in particular. Yeah, i it's funny because rigid me,
00:40:58
Speaker
read the text first, which I don't do all the time. But you know having seen the previous room, I thought, okay, it's important to maybe know the context right away. And the text is very prominent and it's part of the installation and and their exhibition. So you know I thought it was the thing to do. And so I read the text and then I was like, okay, great.
00:41:19
Speaker
Turn to the photographs. It's a big two very long walls filled with portraits. And I started looking and thinking, I'm going to see this progression, this visual explanation, ah almost kind of a ah visual advocating for the freeing of identity and self-expression.
00:41:43
Speaker
But the way it's installed, you really you don't have a beginning and an end for each person photographed. So I was a bit disturbed by that. As I told you before, so I went twice. So the first time I went there, I was really troubled by that. um display and I asked myself a lot of questions because I couldn't recognize anyone. I was unsure because to me there were single portraits of very different people. You can trace back the zenella somewhere there and you recognize them really well. They have this incredible face, an incredible presence um and then you can recognize a few people and I just thought
00:42:29
Speaker
How weird that you can't, do I have face blindness? You know, I was asking myself lots of questions. um And I also, you know, probably if you listen to the episode about Dido Moriyama, that I have some misgivings with photography, particularly with portraiture. yeah I find that it often feels like butterflies pinned onto of a surface and then framed. I have a hard time with that. There's this idea that somehow your your your surface, your skin, your appearance, the shape of your eyes says stuff about you. And I'm so against that idea of you know being too visual about people and personalities and what they stand for. and um And the second time I went with you,
00:43:21
Speaker
So you helped me through the process in and you made me understand that it was actually really beautiful to lose the thread and to understand that we are all together. We're kind of intertwined and maybe I'm you and maybe you're me. I mean, that's how I read it the second time around. And maybe we are all kind of connected and not just these identities, which is what anti-woke. I mean, just saying this for lack of better expressions. People are you know saying like, oh, you're so focused on yourself, you're self-identifying, and you know you're being so egotistic. And here it's just saying, no, we're just a fabric.
00:44:03
Speaker
yeah of togetherness. And of course, we have our own personal histories and we have our own specificities, but we're also part of this fabric, of this huge net ah around the world, but also very locally in this space. um So I also learned in the exhibition that after the ah apartheid,
00:44:28
Speaker
South Africa had really progressive laws regarding same-sex marriage and the recognition of queerness. They were the the fifth country, I think, to recognize same-sex marriage. However, it's also the country that has the most violence, queer hate crimes. um So there's a big discrepancy between the law and the social reality. right So it's even more it's even more courageous, I think, to to be out there and to have a portrait in that context of yourself as, you know, framed in such a way. So that was my journey. Yeah, no, I hear you. Sorry, it was too long. Not at all. Not at all. I mean, I think, yeah, portraiture can leave me a little flat as well. um and ah But I think
00:45:26
Speaker
you know kind of sitting with with it and what you said I think is something I came away with too was just the courageousness and the context within which these portraits are being taken is enormous. I mean, south africa they have South Africa as a through line yeah in their entire in the in their entire exhibition and their work. But um the fact that you can see you know a bit of a journey that some of these folks are taking is
00:45:58
Speaker
is really phenomenal. And I think you know looking at that as a you know a heterosexual white woman who has not had to think about so much about their sexuality, about my gender orientation, because the entire world was like, you know what? You're cool.
00:46:21
Speaker
ah true you know i mean i i didn't that sort of mirror i didn't have to do the hard looking and really cultivate that for myself and it was which i think.
00:46:37
Speaker
We should. I mean i think you know i think there's there's so much there there to explore you know about one's sexuality and gender identification, even if you are someone who's sort of like me,
00:46:53
Speaker
identifies with the status quo more or less, you know, I mean You know, I think of this all the time. It's like, you know, I'm a heterosexual woman Therefore I'm attracted to men but really there are so few men I am attracted to I mean like if you really think about it, you know, it's like so so is that what sexuality is I don't think so so but but going back to the exhibition, I think that's a It's such a gift to experience that on some level and through these portraits of people exploring that for themselves and demonstrating that for themselves in such a, in such a you know, definitive way. The other thing that Moholy works with is the gaze. They are really tuned into that notion of the gaze.
00:47:49
Speaker
and Absolutely. and And when I was looking at the images, they are all really confident. They are all looking back at me whether with a clarity and not confrontation, but a real conviction about who they are. There's maybe one or two that look a little bit timid in their countenance, but that feels very intended.
00:48:18
Speaker
you know i don't think I don't think you could get that that sort of feeling of, here I am, and this is it, and go ahead and have a look. um You couldn't get that if it weren't sort of really crafted into the work. They they travel um all over. There's this love for South Africa as well. I know some people that live there or there are from there, and you always hear about the violence.
00:48:46
Speaker
And you always hear about, especially Joburg, Johannesburg, you know as being like having areas where you can't go. What's beautiful about these videos is that Moholy goes everywhere and they work with the people that are photographed.
00:49:04
Speaker
in a way that is very collaborative and affirmative. um And there's this notion of um going towards people that found their safe space as well. And there's never this idea of fear of violence. And it's ah an incredible work behind the camera that takes place. And I also like, with all the reticence I have with photography, I also like this idea that that sometimes I think of the exhibition as just the place where the artwork lands. For a certain time, but the artworks and the art projects have a life of their own outside of the exhibition space and will continue to have a life of their own
00:49:49
Speaker
outside of the exhibition space. And I think you feel that really well in this exhibition. Yeah, no, that's a good point because it is so place-based. Their context is South Africa. And we'll go further into different places, and there's a real evolution of place that happens throughout the exhibition itself.
00:50:14
Speaker
which we definitely will talk about. But I think that's right. I think there's there's such a ah feeling of place throughout it that it's hard to, you can't you can't pull that apart from the work and you can imagine it naturally living in you know in other places. So yeah, no, I think that's That's really true. I hadn't thought about that as I was walking through it, but I think you're absolutely right, that aliveness that it has beyond the beyond the tape. So the the portraits the portrait room leads to a room that's entitled Being. It depicts couples and everyday acts of intimacy between some lovers, between friends,
00:51:02
Speaker
And these are really beautiful images. I mean, again, very intimate, like the first room. But you know where the first room is you know documenting ah survivors, this is much more kind of positive and loving and and in a very natural way. So the artist is keen to dispel this myth, as you mentioned,
00:51:23
Speaker
that persisted that colonialism brought homosexuality to Africa and it didn't didn't exist before then. um When in fact, you know there was even a story on the in the text about certain people that were celebrated that could, ah like a woman in certain tribes that would have many wives.
00:51:44
Speaker
You know, I mean, yeah and that this is part of the folklore. And so the images you see are really stunning. Vaseline on the lens and some to make a very kind of blurred ah ah blurred effect. and And there's kind of, you know, intimate shots in a bedroom setting. there's But there's just like kind of people being together and touching in a friendly or intimate way and bathing or kissing and it's just really heartwarming and
00:52:20
Speaker
There is a giant sculpture of the full anatomy of a clitoris in the room as well, which is truly, yeah, which is great. Which is a joy. Yeah, totally. It's such a joy. It looks like a bird. Yeah, it kind of does. It kind of does. There's a hole in the middle.
00:52:43
Speaker
like really circular and perfect. Yeah. And you can go around it. There's some flaps and it's bronze. So it's uber heavy. Yeah. But it doesn't feel heavy at all. It just feels like it's going to flap its wings and fly somewhere in orgasmic vibration. Yeah, totally. Oh my God.
00:53:07
Speaker
And it's it's black and gold, you know, and it you can walk all the way around it and really, you know, get close to it. And it kind of has four points that meet the ground. And it looks like it might just just like crawl away.
00:53:24
Speaker
it might just It might just get up and like move to another room, go go check another room out or something. They are such a talented photographer and yet then can produce something like that. it's Such a talent. Such a talent, yeah. And such a leap. In literature, you're always reading about the female genitals as a whole, as it yeah a to be, penant like, a void, right? To be penetrated or entered. And here there's a whole consistency. And even just like the clitoris is often thought of as one small point.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yes. it you know this is This is really showing the the full anatomy of it, of a much more complex organism. Yeah, the nerve ending that is kind of rheumatic. And so yeah, it's great. So moving on to the next room after this joyful discovery. And then now we get into a section that's called Queering Public Space.
00:54:31
Speaker
So the artist is showing images of transgender women, gay men, gender non-conforming people. Intersex people. Yeah. And these are people who are on the beach. They're on you know kind of Constitution Hill, I think was a kind of a famous place in Joburg where some of the images were taken. But the the point is, is that people are, they're kind of full expression of themselves, really beautiful, some of the shots using sort of sweeping fabric and reflections. And so the the artistry of the photography is is great. It's bringing the expression of gender nonconformity and in all of its arrays ah to the public sphere, which is which is cool. And the bit I might like the most is the giant image that covers one entire wall that's taken at the beach. And it's maybe like a dozen transgender women in bathing suits on their knees, kind of in a half horseshoe shape.
00:55:43
Speaker
getting their picture taken. And most of the beach, the the beach is packed with people. It's absolutely packed with people. And most people are just sort of unawares and are doing their thing, but there's a few people that are sort of walking by or a nearer that are having a little second glance and You know, some of them are just like, Oh, wow. You know that. And some people have a bit more curiosity washed across their face. But yeah, it's just, it's a great image. And in the middle, there is a beautiful, again, a beautiful sculpture of a person lying down on the ground with a blanket over them and two bolsters under their head. Are they sleeping? I think they might be sleeping.
00:56:31
Speaker
But I i liked the ocean. Wait, they are sleeping. Yeah. And I just love... And it's Annelle and Maholi themselves. Ah, great. Because they have such a distinctive face, so you can see it's them. The sculptor is bronze again. So they say that they use bronze because I was really curious about that. I was like, why? Why? Because these pictures ah in this room a all have people who improvise, construct, build their outfits.
00:57:08
Speaker
through found objects, not found objects, but objects that wouldn't be used for clothing. So there's this kind of tradition of drag queens particularly to make their garments from what they can find. Why sculpture in such a traditional, especially when you're looking at this kind of improvised makeshift aesthetic, why bronze? you know It's such a traditional European ah language and material. And so they say that they use bronze because they want to make sure that these queer images are not going to go anywhere and they're going to last forever and they're going to be in history. And suddenly by hearing that, I remembered
00:57:52
Speaker
all these texts that I've read about people complaining about the lack of archives. So I found that really interesting because again, it's working in the present to make sure that in the future, history will be constructed differently. um So that that's really interesting as well, I think. And I heard i heard that they wanted bronze to match some of the European statues that are bronze, like think of Trafalgar Square, think of you know any square in Europe. And that there was an exhibition, I think it was in Paris, where these bronze sculptures were outside in the manner that you might see men on a horse commanding you know his army.
00:58:41
Speaker
That would be really wonderful to see you know outside of the exhibition space and the white cubes of you know galleries across Europe and really out into the central square where they can be celebrated in the same manner that So, I mean, I walk by those in London all the time, those big bronze sculptures of men. And I'm like, who is this guy? I've never heard of him. i mean and you know it's like and But they're all the same. They're all sort of you know heroic figures and some kind of army garb of one time or another.
00:59:20
Speaker
And fine, they did important things. um But, you know, other people, it would be great to see other versions of that. Someone put on Instagram, like, who is great enough to be immortalized in stone or a bronze? I think no one. Maybe, shall we stop doing this?
00:59:40
Speaker
you know And ah it was an interesting take, but I cannot not tell the story um of an Angolan artist called Kilwanji Kia Henda. And he did something amazing, which was that in Luanda, I think it's Luanda in Angola, there's this empty plinth where a sculpture of some Portuguese historical figure ah was portrayed by a statue there and so it was taken down after the independence of Angola. So he did a whole project over there which was to invite people
01:00:17
Speaker
to, I think, spoken word people of ah queer communities, but not only ah to take the plinth and perform there, perform on the plinth. And I thought it was such a beautiful idea, which is this, you are a temporary sculpture. While you're still alive, and then you go about your life, and you are imperfect for sure, but what you do And what you perform is the important thing about you. It's your action. And I thought that was so interesting. And now we're looking at these bronze sculptures of ah the artist themselves. So again, self-expression, which is not about being heroic. Great. So the next room we have is called Brave Beauties. And so we've gone from a public space
01:01:12
Speaker
to a curated audience space. So in this room, there's a lot of a lot of ah pageant holders, you know people who've been part of beauty pageants and they have the sashes.
01:01:27
Speaker
or people who are replicating poses from like a fashion magazine cover, you know, in a swimsuit, you know, knee high in the water, you know, that kind of thing. And so you're going from, you know, the the places where people might be around and might be looking at you to you have an audience here in these images. And I love a beauty queen.
01:01:55
Speaker
I mean, i there is something so i beauty pageants themselves, checkered history, all of it, I get it. you know I get that it's a performance of gender that isn't always healthy, but there is something about the vulnerability of that goes into those pictures and also something very empowering about people who have been denied access to those taking some Taking up space in that in in that realm in that room. There's a video and the second room. So the following room there's another video where um these ah beauty queens speak for themselves and then people who were of that LGBTQIA plus community that Zanele Maholi
01:02:43
Speaker
um brings to the museum or to exhibition spaces, speak for themselves and ah for their own experience. And they're so diverse. I think ah one of the good things that it does, I think this exhibition, is to explain how diverse queerness is.
01:03:02
Speaker
and how horrifying it is when you reduce it to just one aspect yeah of it, and how conflicting some of these positions are as well. I mean, so so you're talking about sharing stories, which is the activist video, some of whom were involved. Sorry, yes.
01:03:20
Speaker
yeah of in the Faces and Phases Project. So they're telling stories about how they're improving lives within the queer community. And I think what was important about that too is because of the stigmatization of queer people. I mean, this is in South Africa for sure where it seems to be more pronounced, but I'd say everywhere. How just Just watching people talk about how they're caring for their communities just seems so... logical. When people start thinking about the trans issues and gender fluidity and you know it it can feel like turbulent waters and watching those stories, it's just people talking about caring about people. you know mean it and it's just There was just something just so, and and who wouldn't want to be a part of that?
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean they're just regular videos, literally camera on a person from the shoulders up talking primarily. And it was just so relatable on just a regular human level that I found really nice.
01:04:36
Speaker
And it positions yourself in the role of the listener, which is something that is not happening a lot nowadays, to just listen to experiences and just maybe pay attention and realize that they're not your experience. You don't have to understand everything, but understand in the sense that, like, partake in whatever that experience is, but you can accept it as it being a possibility just by listening, you know just by paying attention. Because I think it also positions the spectator into this um network of caring. As I was reaching this point the first time I went, I have started looking at people around me
01:05:22
Speaker
and thinking, oh, you know, what are these people thinking about this? There was this feeling of we're all here kind of listening yeah and and looking and and watching. And also in this context of beauty, I think there's also this idea of beauty.
01:05:40
Speaker
that is being questioned. The restricted notion we have, and when I say we, you know all societies in different ways have of beauty, which is such a constricted and small space where only 2% of the population can fit.
01:05:59
Speaker
And here suddenly it's like, it's being opened up and extended. And you know the fact that they were a hair stylist at some point made me think of a story I read. I think it wasn't a New Yorker. I don't know in what context, but it was this person who had been a makeup artist in this shop, in a shopping center where they you know people come and they can be made up. And they were saying, by doing that and spending so much time on people's faces, I ended up by just by the time I had to spend with them.
01:06:30
Speaker
to find everyone utterly beautiful. And I just thought, wow, that's what I felt in this exhibition, the following room. OK. Right. So here we go. The explosion. Because this is where a gear shift happens. And yeah, it absolutely unfolds into a new territory. um So as we've talked about, the nature of the exhibition thus far has been
01:07:05
Speaker
helping the viewer enter into worlds and view things they might have not seen before, but it has a documentary thread through it. In this last well second-to-last room, technically, the artist explodes into, to my mind, a place where they are like, go where your mind and imagination are going to take you. They're not trying to show you something.
01:07:37
Speaker
you wouldn't see before. It's their own history and deep psyche being expressed. And, hey, where does your deep psyche go when you see this? You know, they are working with the gaze. All of these images are the artist. They are painted in a really dark skin tone.
01:08:06
Speaker
much darker than their own. And there's a lot of wardrobe happening, I guess, is maybe a way to put it. They're black and white photographs. Exactly. They're black and white photographs. And they are dealing more with racial identity here. And they are magnificent.
01:08:30
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So they are a photographer, an activist, a sculptor, and the way they bring their presence to these images as a model, you cannot look away. I was so blown away by this room. The blackness of the skin is emphasized. So they I think they paint themselves or they emphasize it in post-production.
01:08:57
Speaker
the the lips sometimes are painted white, and the white of the eyes is emphasized as well. So there's this in important statement about colorism as well. the The idea of colorism is that you can go up to a certain point in blackness, but from a certain point onward,
01:09:16
Speaker
but There's no way that's going to be deemed beautiful or even photographed because one of the reasons there weren't many Black actors in cinema for a long time is that, oh, it's so hard to film yeah very dark people, you know. And here you have ah the the darkest of darks and it's arresting you know to say that. But also the mise-en-scene is incredible. So I find this room very overwhelming because there is so much work gone to each image. there's one I'm not sure it's there. It's when I was researching this a project where
01:09:55
Speaker
they were talking about the intricateness of blackness and of ethnicity, and they were saying, like, where are the Afro-Japanese people, for example? What about them? And so they clothed themselves in a kimono and, like, stuck. These, I think, were hair in pens that would would be Japanese-like. So a lot of the imagery is confusing. You don't know exactly what it's saying. It's complex. And you can spend an hour you know looking at each image. quite There's one where there's... And we spent some time in front of it. The artist
01:10:36
Speaker
en enveloped in bicycle tires. And the expression they have is always very difficult to read. It's usually quite stern, but not always deep. It's very deep and concentrated. And so I read about this that picture that they were relating to a particular event.
01:10:59
Speaker
And they were also thinking back to ah the fact that there was something called, and I hope I'm not ah misremembering, I think it was called necklacing, which was to put tires around black people and setting them on fire and thus killing them, obviously, in the most horrendous of ways. Again, a horrifying thing that is not identified as such.
01:11:25
Speaker
So that's also I think one of the strengths of I think an artwork is when it's very personal, but also not wanting to give away all the history behind it. There is a variation of reactions that you can have to it according to your own background. And I found it really interesting, Emily, that you as an American will react to the imagery in with your particular history. Do you want to Talk about it. Sure. Yeah, so minstrel shows. Yes. Which was ah in the 20s, 30s, maybe even later, it erupted from vaudeville. And it was where white actors would put blackface on and mimic black behavior in a really racialized
01:12:14
Speaker
horrible way. There were some gestures that they used in some of the images that reminded me of that. So in a couple of the images they wore white gloves, which is a common thing in minstrel shows. And some of the some of the facial expressions also kind of, they were a couple with very wide eyes. And obviously just the black painted skin that was accentuating darkness of the skin. And that's what minstrel shows did. And there's so much American art from, you know, that African American artists make that reference that as well. I mean, one kind of somewhat recent example is Donald Glover, his Childish Gambino in his This is America video. And he kind of dances around in sort of a minstrel show kind of way but but yeah so there was definitely echoes of that in some of the images so some of the background is that their mother was a domestic worker and a lot of the ah wardrobe I guess in the images reflect that so ah there's one with a lot of clothes pins
01:13:37
Speaker
all around and they are wearing a rug, like a rug you'd find on the floor around their shoulders and it's clipped with clothespins. And there's one where they're wearing a really elaborate sort of woven straw, bit of straw rope, I guess, around the neck.
01:14:01
Speaker
and their hair is high and perched on top of their hair is a stool, like a short stool. Oh yes, yes. That you might sit on to clean the floor.
01:14:13
Speaker
And I was looking at that and with all of the images, they are so arresting in their gaze. I mean, they you cannot not look at these and everything about the backdrop and I can just imagine how many hours it took to craft these images and get together because They are just full as full can be. But looking at this and thinking, you know, it's it's a bit ridiculous in a sense that they have a stool on their head. And yet there is nothing funny or whimsical about it at all. It is conveyed with power and intention. And you you engage with that visual in such a different way. I feel like they could have
01:15:03
Speaker
they could have just veered off a little bit and it would have felt like, ah. But they they just kept to the power of the gaze. I didn't think of that. That's so true. Because i as you were speaking, I was thinking, it's very humorless. The exhibition and the subjects, well, not subject, participants in the portraits are the ones bringing humor, should that be their personality. But as Annelle Mihaly themselves,
01:15:36
Speaker
has this seriousness and this sternness. and While we were talking, it made me think of Hannah Gatsby and her show Nanette, where she completely upturned. The deflection by humor of your weirdness or your difference, which is something that you do to protect yourself, but also end up by negating your identity, by making fun of it. And there was a lot of talk about that in stand-up comedy where
01:16:13
Speaker
you know, if you're fat, you make fun of being fat. If you're this, you make fun of being this. And yeah, I did not think of that, but it's even even in the videos I watched of Holly, they have this very... um deep presence, you know, this very aware presence of others. And that's one of the reasons that they decided to do self-portraiture, because they said in this process of caring for others, you end up kind of like not including yourself in there. And it's a way of including themselves and kind of looking inward and to their own history and how it kind of resonates with whatever's happening in the world. And um and so that's kind of the missing point. And as you say, I agree
01:16:58
Speaker
It is the strong point of the exhibition because there's this point where, or also like the sculptures, where suddenly there's this sublimation of an aesthetic, a language that is being created in front of your eyes and photography has that very moving thing when it's um but there's a mise-en-scene, which is that you know that the person picked those elements very carefully, put them on, took some time,
01:17:27
Speaker
put on the makeup and, you know, kind of like took this whole time to get to that point. Yeah. Yeah. the the yeah I agree. I agree. I mean, I think that that that room really felt like it opened my mind in a way.
01:17:45
Speaker
and my imagination and took me into something in a yeah in a way I didn't expect and I wasn't sure would happen in quite a documentary style exhibition.
01:18:02
Speaker
But yeah, it was it was fantastic. And there's ah there's apparently a book of all of those self-portraits. They have been working on that since 2012, so there might be a lot of additional images that weren't in the exhibition itself.
01:18:18
Speaker
yeah ah Yeah, so yeah, i'm I'm here for it. So I propose that we wrap this up. This was really enjoyable, but I have one last question for you, Emily, which is, what was your highlight of exhibitionistas during 2024? Because it's the only year we've existed, but it's been a whole year on the 27th of January, I think. It will be a whole year. So what's your if you had to pick one thing,
01:18:48
Speaker
What would be your highlight? So one thing. I'm so sorry, I put you on the spot. Yeah, boy. You know, Philip Gustin was the one, the first one that I researched. And so that has a very strong presence in my mind. And that exhibition was, I i thoroughly enjoyed it. But yeah, I mean, I think that one, but also I would say,
01:19:21
Speaker
Sainabh Salah. Oh yeah! You did something for me. I mean, there was just something, you know, it's funny, looking back, I was quite ill and didn't know it and was tired all the time and was looking at her images of, you know, peacefulness and rest and, you know, the cat on the carpet. And I was like, oh, you could just take a nap down there. And so I remember it but it being, you know, it being
01:19:52
Speaker
something that was probably speaking to me in a way that I didn't even understand at the time. She's at ah David Zvana's gallery. know Yeah, exactly now. Back at you, girl. Which one? Oh, damn. Oh, ah sorry. I was so focused on asking you the question that I didn't think that I would have to answer it. Oh, gosh. Highlight of 2024, when I look back what comes to mind immediately. That's a good exercise. um
01:20:27
Speaker
I think Yoko Ono was a big one for me. it was so It was a powerful experience as an exhibition. It was really great to find out more about someone I had so many wrong ideas about. I had listened to a podcast about her So I knew a but a little bit more about her, but it wasn't focused on the artwork and just being able to rewrite history for myself.
01:21:03
Speaker
while realizing that I had Grapefruit, the book, in my home all this time and didn't even realize. I mean, I did, but do you know when you know? I love the feeling that the podcast gives me of knowing something that actually I didn't know and then really spending time with it and finally assimilating it because you have a lot of data in your head, but spending time with certain things and choosing a specific angle on them really brings them home and makes you assimilate things that you didn't otherwise. And I also love Dido Moriamas because... Oh, hello. That's unexpected. I love the feeling of
01:21:56
Speaker
making an effort to go beyond my likes and dislikes and that was a huge one and it was the first time. ah So yeah, that was that was a big one for me where I also kind of like put into practice this principle of ah being very open. And even if it's not something that emotionally works 100% for me yeah and is my personal ah fold, let's say, like the way I'm made and and the thing that I will be drawn to, I loved opening myself up to a context, to to a story, to something behind it yeah that was um yeah that was really powerful.
01:22:44
Speaker
This is the great thing about exhibitions, is it not? It's like somebody you think you know and you can reorient yourself to them, like Yoko Ono or maybe even Mike Kelly, but then also it's like somebody you don't know that sort of reorients things inside your own heart and mind and psyche and spirit. um Yeah, it's there's there's nothing else quite like it.
01:23:11
Speaker
There isn't, absolutely. So that said, um it's time to wrap up. Thank you so much, Emily. Thank you for this. This is the first episode of 2025. Here's hoping for um Well, surprising is going to be 2025. We know that now since 2020. No year is like the the previous ah in this in this decade, ah but here's hoping that we'll have some incredibly exciting episodes. I know we will. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for sticking with us. Here's to another year of exhibitionists. Exactly. Happy new year, everyone, and happy new year, Giovanna.
01:23:50
Speaker
you too and we'll see you soon thanks so much see you soon bye bye