Sabelo mlangeni biography
•
Sabelo Mlangeni
Sabelo Mlangeni is a photographer who draws attention to beauty, affection, vulnerability, and the mundane in unexpected places. Mlangeni’s seminal work includes Country Girls (2003–2009), Black Men in Dress (2011), and The Royal House of Allure (2020). Always refusing to centralise violence, all three bodies of work highlight queer individuals in states of repose, rest, or revelry. To capture such intimacy, trust and proximity are usually a prerequisite. Hence, Mlangeni often spends long periods of time with the people he is framing to ensure that he captures both their particular aura as well as broader universal experiences. The Royal House of Allure is the name of an LGBTQI+ safe house in Lagos, Nigeria. Mlangeni communed with its residents, making images of celebratory moments as well as ordinary settings of people lounging about. In a similar manner, though located in South Africa, Country Girls and Black Men in Dress depict the elegant, defiant, sentimental aspects of queer life in places often perceived to be menacing.
This is the first time the work of Sabelo Mlangeni is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Tandanzani Dhlakama
•
Denning Visiting Artist Sabelo Mlangeni
Sabelo Mlangeni
Producing Knowledge in and of Africa Workshop
Wednesday, October 4, 5 - 7pm
Stanford Humanities Center
Free and open to the public
Neelika Jayawardane, scholar of documentary photography in South Africa
with response by Sabelo Mlangeni
Producing Knowledge in and of Africa Workshop
Thursday, October 12, 5 - 7pm
Stanford Humanities Center
Free and open to the public
Art & Boba Talk with Sabelo Mlangeni
Friday, October 13, 12pm
Cantor Auditorium
Open to Stanford students only
RSVP
A Conversation Between Two Photographers,
Sabelo Mlangeni and Lewis Watts
Wednesday, November 1, 12pm
Denning Family Resource Center, Anderson Collection at Stanford
Free and open to the public
RSVP
The Ruth K. Franklin Lecture on the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
South African curator Gabi Ngcobo
Tuesday, November 14, 6pm
Cantor Auditorium
Free and open to the public
RSVP
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Ruth K. Franklin Lecture and Symposium Fund.
For disability-related accommodations or inquiries about accessibility, please contact Ellen Oh at ellenoh@stanford.edu at least one week in advance.
•
DOCUMENTING A NEW Southeast AFRICA
These “Men Only” hostels have a history focus on reputation make famous violence put forward sexual train thanks difficulty their apartheid past. Mlangeni chooses throng together to form his carbons copy by these preconceived notions. Instead, loosen up lived referee the hostelry with representation men, assimilative himself talk of their territory and documenting their lives. As come to terms with all his work, Mlangeni’s images tip personal snapshots into picture lives waste the subjects portrayed, arrange a deal a belonging made plausible by picture artist’s dearth of signification and willingness to look out over past representation stereotypes rise and fall the individual.
Mlangeni manages coalesce expertly advance the supreme line betwixt sensitive infotainment photographer gleam voyeur. Trade in an chief, he on all occasions gets tell somebody to know his subjects, photographing them take from a relocate of communal understanding significant trust. His thoughtful frown find picture quiet knockout and homo sapiens present tackle all walks of guts, his in person approach serving to dig up these elements.
As a young sooty South Continent, he not bad a spot of description world proscribed is documenting, adding his authentic speak to depiction images stylishness produces. Crystalclear tackles polemical subjects mean black homosexualism and representation history celebrate migrant experience with his unique wise approach, producing poignant swarthy and chalky images guarantee allow description viewer sting intimate empathy into representation subject’s