Thabile, Parktown, 2015
Zanele Muholi
Yancey Richardson Gallery
The Hasselblad Foundation announced this morning that South African photographer Zanele Muholi has been chosen as the 2026 laureate of the foundation’s Hasselblad Award. The prize for the distinction, which is the world’s largest photography award, consists of SEK 2,000,000 ($216,3155), a gold medal, and a Hasselblad camera. As a result, Muholi will also be the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden from October 10th, 2026 through April 4th, 2027. An award ceremony will take place on October 9th.
“Zanele Muholi stands as one of the most influential contemporary photographers, with an impact that reaches far beyond the art world,” said the Hasselblad Foundation in a press statement. “Muholi’s photographs are formally compelling, employing composition, colour, greyscale, and lighting to create an adept visual language that holds both strength and vulnerability. The portraits foreground individuals with a direct and dignified gaze, challenging prejudice and discrimination while creating alternative visual histories. Activism and community work is an integral part of their practice, which combines political urgency and formal mastery, making Muholi a central figure in global queer visual culture.”
Muholi, a visual activist, humanitarian, and artist, is considered one of the most prominent photographers working today. Through their two decades-plus photography practice, they have documented and celebrated the lives of Black members of the LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa and used their art as a vehicle for social change. “For years, my work has been about visibility and resistance,” said Muholi in a press statement. “It has been about creating an archive so that no one can say, ‘We did not know.’ When this honour comes, I receive it on behalf of my community; those who have been erased, those who are still here, and those who are yet to see themselves reflected with dignity.”
The artist was born in Durban, South Africa in 1972 during apartheid. They live and work between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Muholi studied advanced photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg and received an MFA in documentary media from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2009. Their work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. They also mounted solo shows at Fotografiska Stockholm in 2018, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 2022, and the Seattle Art Museum in 2019. They are represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York and Southern Guild Gallery in Cape Town and New York.
