Stanford Humanities Center
Editor's Note: What follows are image reproductions of the brochure for artist Sabelo Mlangeni's Cantor Arts exhibit Imvuselelo: The Revival, which ran from September 27, 2023 to January 21, 2024. A full reproduction of the text within the brochure follows the images.
Image 1:
Sabelo Mlangeni
Imvuselelo: The Revival
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Umkhuleko Wabagulayo, Mama Khoza, Mfundisi Mathebula, KwaNyandeni, 2007. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 2:
Imvuselelo: The Revival
SEP 27, 2023–JAN 21, 2024
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
Lynn Krywick Gibbons Gallery
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), In Time, A Morning After Umlindelo, 2016. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Sabelo Mlangeni (2023–24 Stanford Visiting Artist) spends time within each of the communities he photographs, developing an intimacy before he begins to work with his camera. In Mlangeni’s native South Africa, he has photographed women who clean the streets of Johannesburg at night, the residents of a hostel that houses a community of male immigrants on the city’s outskirts, and queer men living in small towns and villages in the countryside, to name just a few.
The photographs on view in this exhibition show Zionist congregations to which Mlangeni belongs. The African Zionism movement (unrelated to Jewish nationalism) is a healing-centered Christian practice which has 15–18 million members in southern Africa. Although it has roots in the United States, it now has very little following in this country. Each time Mlangeni has shown this series he has given the exhibition a new name in order to indicate a relationship with the landscape in which the images will be viewed. Here Mlangeni has chosen to fold back in on history; he is revisiting to decolonize in a gesture that, in the words of the artist, “brings these hymns of revival to America.”
Sometimes the sense of familiarity Mlangeni cultivates coincides with a sense of distance. He prints photographs in which blurred figures appear, or in which details of faces, edges, or even large parts of scenes are obscured. He uses images that extend over the exposed ends of film rolls and reproduces damaged negatives. All of these techniques work against a desire to see everything in sharp focus and clear detail, and allow those who appear in these images the refuge and resistance of opacity.
Christina Linden
Director of Academic and Public Programs, Cantor Arts Center
This exhibition is organized by the Cantor Arts Center, and is presented in concert with the colloquium Curating the Image: African Photography and the Politics of Exhibitions, instructed by Joel Cabrita, Associate Professor of History and, by courtesy, of Religious Studies and Susan Ford Dorsey Director, Center for African Studies, Stanford University. We gratefully acknowledge support from The C. Diane Christensen Fund for African Art. Sabelo Mlangeni’s visit to campus has been made possible through the generous support of the Stanford Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning.
Image 3:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Inkonzo Yokunikela, Twelve at Ferrum High School, Newcastle, 2018. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Abaprofethi, Mamelodi, 2008. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 4:
Sabelo Mlangeni on Imvuselelo
This body of work has been exhibited in South Africa and in the UK, under a different title in each instance. Joel Cabrita and I had always planned to devise an exhibition of this work in the United States. Given the historic links of the Zionist church to North America, the goal was to show this work in both Southern Africa and the US, as a way of reflecting upon the relationship between these two sites of worship. But while Zionism in Southern Africa is alive and well, the church has practically died off in the US. So from the very beginning I had in mind the title of “Imvuselelo,” or “Revival,” for the US exhibition. In South Africa, a Zionist revival is all about the choruses and hymns of healing. A tent will be pitched in an area and the songs and music will be heard from afar. So I think of these photographs as songs of revival. Although Zionism in the US has declined, these photographs would revive the dormant North American church. I was also interested in the way that this challenged the usual missionary narrative of Americans bringing Christianity to Africa. In this exhibition it works the other way round: these South African photographs bring back to life dead America.
In making the selection of images, I focused on work that spoke across these two contexts. I explore what Black masculinity means in a North American context. What are the resonances from the South African experience in the US? The group portrait of the male choir that serves as the wallpaper image for the exhibition has various posters in the background: “Democracy Male Voice Choir,” “No To Guns/Yes To Peace.” This made me think about gun violence in the US, and the way in which young Black men in the US are disproportionately affected by police brutality, as well as the failure of democracy to deliver to this constituency. Although the work is about spiritual topics, I want to stretch its meaning to also address broader political issues. Another example of this is the image portraying the rope. This is an item frequently used in Zionist churches. As a young man or woman, you might receive a prophecy instructing you to wear this rope to protect you from spiritual attack. But if you think about the rope and Black masculinity in the US context, it has a very different resonance. Instead of spiritual protection, it connects to the history of lynching and of traumatic legacy of violence against Black bodies.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Iseshi, Umense neSphambano, 2008. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 5:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Democracy Male Voice, 2003. Color print on wallpaper from digital scan. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 6:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), UMkhumbi KaNoah, Sgonyela, Thembi, Ntongo, Nkosi, Enkampane, 2011. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Bhutiza, 2016. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 7:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Isikhali, 2015. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), KwaMaseko Eshabalala, 2017. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 8:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Entabeni, Umthandazo, 2016. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 9:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Ibhasi neBandla, 2015. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), The late Sweetmama Mathebula, 2007. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 10:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Umthandazi, 2008. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Mfundisi Ndlangamandla eFernie, 2002. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 11:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Umlindelo wamaKholwa, 2016. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), KwaMtsali, Bhekumthetho, Nongom, 2016. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 12:
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Ukuhlonywa Kwezikhali, Mfundisi Mathebula, 2006. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Photo: Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, born 1980), Ukubhabhadiswa Umama Zulu neBandla, 2003. Hand-printed silver gelatin print. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town. © Sabelo Mlangeni.
Image 13:
Related Programs
WED, OCT 4, 5-7 PM Sabelo Mlangeni, Producing Knowledge in and of Africa Workshop, Stanford Humanities Center, FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
THU, OCT 12, 5-7 PM Neelika Jayawardane, scholar of documentary photography, Producing Knowledge in and of Africa Workshop, Stanford Humanities Center, FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
FRI, OCT 13, 10 AM Virtual Walkthrough with Joel Cabrita and Sabelo Mlangeni for Photography Network symposium, OPEN TO SYMPOSIUM MEMBERS ONLY
FRI, OCT 13 NOON Art & Boba Talk with Sabelo Mlangeni, Cantor Auditorium, OPEN TO STANFORD STUDENTS ONLY
TUES, NOV 14 6 PM The Ruth K. Franklin Lecture on the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, South African curator Gabi Ngcobo in conversation with Sabelo Mlangeni, Cantor Auditorium, FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Ruth K. Franklin Lecture and Symposium Fund.
THU, NOV 30, 1:15-3 PM, “The Past, Present, and Futures of Photography in South Africa and the Bay Area” Panelists: Joel Cabrita, Makeda Best, Erin O’Toole, Natasha Becker, and Sabelo Mlangeni, African Studies Association Conference, Marriott Marquis Hotel 780 Mission Street, San Francisco, OPEN TO CONFERENCE ATTENDEES ONLY
Join the Colloquy
Join the Colloquy
Photography and the Archive in South Africa
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This Colloquy aims to create an archive of the recent residency of South African photographer, Sabelo Mlangeni, at Stanford University, provoking discussion around the intersection between the academy and artistic practice, as well as providing a long-term record of Stanford’s engagement with an important artist. In doing so, we provide an important intervention towards better understanding the public role of the University, and, in particular, its role as a patron of and interlocutor with the arts, especially work produced by Black artists from the African continent.
Our Colloquy focuses on Imvuselelo: The Revival, an exhibition of work by Mlangeni shown at the Cantor Arts Center (September 27, 2023 - January 21, 2024). As part of Imvuselelo, Mlangeni turned his lens towards his own South African Zionist church community (a church distinct from Jewish nationalism) in his rural hometown Driefontein, revealing core realities of post-apartheid life for Black communities across South Africa. The work also pays homage to the church’s American roots—currently withering as the number of American Zionist practitioners declines—fulfilling Mlangeni’s desire to “bring these hymns of revival to America” and laying bare the relationship between his religious practice and decolonial thought.
This Colloquy, which includes materials from Mlangeni’s show at the Cantor and the recordings of classes and public talks and lectures, is designed to be an introduction to Mlangeni’s body of work and to highlight the accompanying themes he vividly depicts in his photographs: gender, sexuality, religion, and race through the lens of a post-apartheid South Africa. This archive is also intended to be a long-term record of the residency and exhibition, contributing to the emerging field of “exhibition history,” and offering evidence of Stanford’s collaboration with Mlangeni for future generations of historians, artists, and the general public.
Finally, the Colloquy invites visitors to reflect upon the academy’s own relationship with Black communities, both near and far. The relationship between academia and art is one historically marred by a culture of elitism and racism; infused with complex questions about what is considered art and deemed worthy of display. But our Colloquy also speaks to the productive potential of artist-academia collaborations, revealing the benefit of on-campus residencies to artists’ careers, to academic practice, and to campus student life. As you examine this archive of an artistic residency on a university campus, consider the complexity of the relationship between academia and art, especially art made by Black, brown, queer, and gender-marginalized individuals.
