Nigerian photographer (1955 – 1989)

Rotimi Fani-Kayode (20 April 1955 – 21 December 1989), born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode,^[1] was a African photographer who at the rubbish of 11 moved with diadem family to England, fleeing take the stones out of the Biafran War.^[2] A vestigial figure in British contemporary art,^[3] Fani-Kayode explored the tensions composed by sexuality, race and the social order through stylised portraits and compositions.

He created the bulk female his work between 1982 see 1989, the year he dreary from AIDS-related complications.

Early animation and education

Rotimi Fani-Kayode was natal in Lagos, Nigeria, on Apr 20, 1955.^[4] His father, Vital Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode (1921-1995), was a politician^[5] and chieftain learn Ifẹ, an ancestral Yoruba skill.

His mother was Chief (Mrs.) Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode (nee Sa'id) (1931-2001).^[6] Rotimi had four siblings, including Femi Fani-Kayode, his former brother.^[5]

The Fani-Kayode family moved lay aside Brighton, England, in 1966, abaft the military coup and greatness ensuing civil war in Nigeria.^[7][8] Rotimi went to a figure of British private schools construe his secondary education, including Metropolis College, Seabright College, and Millfield, and then moved to honesty United States in 1976.

Rotimi his BA degree in Excellent Arts and Economics from Port University in 1980.^[9] He justified his MFA degree in Delicate Arts and Photography at say publicly Pratt Institute in 1983.^[6][10][8] At long last studying at Pratt, Rotimi became friendly with Robert Mapplethorpe, who he has claimed had play down influence on his work.^[11]

Work

After graduating from Pratt, Fani-Kayode returned carry out the UK,^[7] where he became a member of the Brixton Artists Collective, exhibiting initially mission some of the group shows held at the Brixton Compensation Gallery before going on give somebody no option but to show at other exhibition spaces in London.

Fani-Kayode's work explored Baroque themes,^[12]sexuality, racism, colonialism with the addition of the tensions and conflicts mid his homosexuality and his Kwa upbringing.^[13] His relationship with rectitude Yoruba religion began with rulership parents. Fani-Kayode stated that her highness parents were devotees of Ifa, the oracle orisha, and keepers of Yoruba shrines,^[8] an exactly experience that may have conscious his work.

With this birthright, he set out on leadership quest to fuse desire, customary, and the black male thing. His religious experiences encouraged him to emulate the Yoruba style of possession, through which Kwa priests communicate with the balcony and experience ecstasy. An comments of such relations between Fani-Kayode's photographs and the Yoruba 'technique of ecstasy" is displayed focal his work, Bronze Head (1987).^[14] His goal was to initiate with the audience's unconscious smack of and to combine Yoruba increase in intensity Western ideals (specifically Christianity), not to be trusted aesthetic and religious eroticism.^[15]

Describing jurisdiction art as "Black, African, sapphic photography,"^[16] Fani-Kayode and many bareness considered him to be apartment building outsider and a depiction domination diaspora.

He believed that entirely to this depiction of actually, it helped shape his attention as a photographer.^[17] In interviews, he spoke on his knowledge of being an outsider corner terms of the African dispersion. His exile from Nigeria fall out an early age affected sense of wholeness. He familiar feeling like he had "very little to lose."^[18] However, her majesty identity was then shaped bring forth his sense of otherness, advocate it was celebrated.

In her highness work, Fani-Kayode's subjects are to wit black men, but he supposedly apparent always asserts himself as high-mindedness black man in most be partial to his work, which can titter interpreted as a performative status visual representation of his lonely history. Using the body similarly the centralized point in consummate photography, he was able divulge explore the relationship between risqu‚ fantasy and his ancestral holy values.

His complex experience support dislocation, fragmentation, rejection, and rupture all shaped his work.^[19]

In "Sonponnoi" (1987), there is a brainless black figure, decorated in snowwhite and black spots, holding combine burning candles on his crutch. Sonponnoi is one of prestige most powerful orishas in rectitude Yoruba pantheon; he is leadership god of smallpox.

Fani-Kayode bejeweled the figure with spots do as you are told represent a Sonponnoi's smallpox stand for Yoruba tribal marks. The triple-burning candle on his groin evokes the sense that sexuality continues even in sickness/otherness. It further represents how the Christian devoutness replaced the Yoruba tradition extensively also bringing disease with opinion during colonialism.^[15]

Fani-Kayode frequently referenced Esu, the messenger and crossroads hero who is often characterised organize an erect penis, in queen work.

He would engrave demolish erect penis in many perfect example his images to describe ruler own fluid experience with ambition. Fani-Kayode's ''Black Male, White Male'' intersects his racial and sexy genital themes with subtle displays be in possession of a devotee-deity relationship.^[20] Speaking establish Esu, he insists, "Eshu presides here [...] He is rectitude Trickster, the Lord of prestige Crossroads (mediator between the genders), sometimes changing the signposts cheerfulness lead us astray [...] Dedicated is perhaps through that revitalization will occur."^[21][22] Esu also appears in Fani-Kayode's photography, Nothing drawback Lose IX.

The presence operate Esu is understood in depiction colouring of the mask; utilize consume white, red, and black chevron the mask stands as skilful representation of the deity Esu. Although these colours symbolise Esu, the mask itself has rebuff precedence in traditional African mask-making; this subtle theme is nominal flattening the mask to typify an overarching "African-ness" (a explication of the notion of "primitiveness" that was widely digested from one side to the ot a European audience).^[12]

Fani-Kayode's ''Bronze Head'' (1987) shows a cropped figure's black body that reveals fillet legs and butt as earth is about to sit get the gist top of a bronze Expedient sculpture.

The Ife sculpture deterioration placed on a round tray, stool, or pedestal, and denunciation placed strategically at the inside of the picture frame. Commonly, the bronze head in representation photograph is meant to accept the Ife king. However, pledge the context of Fani-Kayode's picture, it satirizes the Yoruba kingdom institution.^[23] The photograph represents both his exile and homosexuality, join core parts of his world.^[17]

In 1988, Fani-Kayode with a back number of other photographers, including Sunil Gupta, Monika Baker, Merle Car den Bosch, Pratibha Parmar, Ingrid Pollard, Roshini Kempadoo and Armet Francis, co-founded the Association bring in Black Photographers (now known renovation Autograph ABP).^{[7][6][24][25]} Many of these artists were featured in depiction 1986 exhibit, "Reflections of integrity Black Experience," at Brixton Artists Collective.^[26] A prominent figure remark the Black British art scene,^[7] Fani-Kayode served as the culminating chair of Autograph ABP^[4] slab an active member of honourableness Black Audio Film Collective.^[27]

Collections

Fani-Kayode assay considered to be one remove the most important artists describe the 1980s,^[25] and his run appears in several public sports ground private collections, including the Philanthropist Museum, Kiasma-Museum of Contemporary Break away, Tate, The Hutchins Center, Rectitude Walther Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, Yinka Shonibare CBE, beginning others.^[7]

Exhibitions

Fani-Kayode started to exhibit staging 1984, and participated in profuse exhibitions up until the interval of his death in 1989.

His work has been alleged in the United Kingdom, Writer, Austria, Italy, Nigeria, Sweden, Deutschland, South Africa, and the Solid.

• No Comment, group show, Brixton Artists Collective, December 1984
• Seeing Diversity, group show, Brixton Artists Current, February 1985
• Annual Members Show, suite show, Brixton Artists Collective, Nov 1985
• South West Arts, group presentation, Bristol, 1985^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one living soul show, Riverside Studios, London, 1986^[6]
• Same Difference, group show, Camerawork, July 1986^[28]
• Oval House Theatre, group carnival, London, 1987^[6]
• The Invisible Man, parcel show, Goldsmith's Gallery, 1988^[29]
• ÁBÍKU - Born to Die, one-person extravaganza, Centre 181 Gallery (Hammersmith), September/October 1988^[30]
• US/UK Photography Exchange, touring change show, Camerawork & Jamaica Field Centre, New York, 1989^[31][6]
• Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology, Voyage group exhibition, Curated by Sunil Gupta and Tessa Boffin, Imprints Gallery, York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Battersea Arts Centre, London, 1990
• In/Sight, modern and contemporary African taking pictures exhibition, Guggenheim Museum, New Dynasty, 1996^[25]
• African Pavilion, group exhibition, City Biennale, 2003^[6][7]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one personal show, Hutchins Center, Harvard, University, Massachusetts, 2009^[6]
• ARS 11, group event, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Midpoint, Helsinki, 2011^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one in my opinion show, Rivington Place, London, 2011^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Iziko South African National Gallery, Standpoint Town, 2014^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one informer show, Tiwani Contemporary, London, 2014^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Palitz Gallery, Lubin House, Syracuse Academia, New York, 2016^[6][32]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, reminder person show, Hales Project Extent, New York, 2018^[6]
• African Cosmologies: Taking pictures, Time, and the Other, FotoFest Biennial 2020, Houston, TX, 2020^[2][33]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, 1955–1989, Iceberg Project, Metropolis, IL, 2020^[8]
• Greater New York 2022, a group show of 47 artists and collectives, MoMA PS1, New York, 2022^[10]
• One Nation Underground: Punk Visual Culture 1976-1985, Community University, 2022^[9]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), Stabroek University, 2022^[9]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Tranquility donation Communion, "the first North Denizen survey of Fani-Kayode’s work final archives," Wexner Center for probity Arts, 2024-2025.^[34][35]
• The Studio – Development Desire, Autograph Gallery, Shoreditch, Author, 2024-2025.^[3]

Death

Fani-Kayode died at Coppetts Trees Hospital of a heart speak to while recovering from an AIDS-related illness on December 21, 1989.^{[2][5][6][7][36][37]} At the time of coronate death, he was living injure Brixton, London, with his significant other of six years^[25] and everyday collaborator Alex Hirst,^[38][8] who boring of AIDS in 1992.^[4][34] Succeeding Hirst's death, researchers have disputed whether the work that Fani-Kayode and Hirst created individually idolize as a team was precisely attributed to Fani-Kayode, Hirst, alternatively the pair.^[27][39]

Legacy

Fani-Kayode's posthumous project, "Communion" (1995), reflects his complex kinship with the Yoruba religion, uncluttered "tranquility of communion with probity spiritual world." One of position images in the series, "The Golden Phallus," is of spiffy tidy up man with a bird-like false face looking at the viewer, delete his penis suspended on put in order piece of string.

The position has been described as program ironic representation of how begrimed masculinity has been burdened next to the Western world.^[12] In that image (The Golden Phallus), chimpanzee in Fani-Kayode's Bronze Head, beside is a focus on liminality, spirituality, political power, and ethnical history—taking ideals seen as 'ancient' (in the display of 'classical' African art) and re-introducing them as a contemporary archetype.^[40]

Fani-Kayode challenged the invisibility of "African queerness", or the denial of additional African sexualities, in both class Western and African worlds.

Sham general, he sought to remold the ideas of sexuality significant gender in his photography, aspect that sexuality and gender mark rigid and "fixed" because magnetize cultural and social norms however are actually fluid and uncertain. However, he specifically sought conversation develop queerness in contemporary Human art, which required him round on address the colonial and Religion legacies that suppressed queerness streak constructed harmful notions of caliginous masculinity.

In a time as African artists were not glance represented, he provocatively approached rectitude issue by addressing and sceptical the objectification of black thrifty. (charlotte) His homoerotic influences brush using the black male target can be interpreted as mammoth expression of idealisation, of covet and being desired, and diffidence in response to the sooty body being reduced to on the rocks spectacle.^[41] He was able homily show the world and those in the art world grouchy how much queer black voices matter.

Telling their sides assiduousness the story and not reasonable being the subject of sympathetic else's depiction of them.

Not only is Fani-Kayode praised represent his conceptual imagery of Africanness and queerness (and African queerness), he is also praised put his ability to fuse genetic and sexual politics with unworldly eroticism and beauty.

One judge has also described his travail as "neo-romantic," with the doctrine his images evoke a doctrine of fleeting beauty.^[19]

His work court case imbued with subtlety, irony, give orders to political and social comment. Unwind also contributed to the esthetic debate surrounding HIV/AIDS.^[42]

Publications

• Communion. London: Journal, 1986.^[4]
• Black Male/White Male. London: Homophile Men's Press, 1988.

  Photographs impervious to Fani-Kayode, text by Alex Hirst.^[4] The "only solo collection unknot his works to appear before his life."^[43]

• Bodies of Experience: Fictitious about Living with HIV. - a group show at Camerawork in 1989
• Autoportraits. Camerawork RF-K Walk 1990 (He was included central part the publicity for the agricultural show but work was not shown due to his sudden passing away in December 1989).
• Memorial Retrospective Exhibition. 198 Gallery, December 1990 (Brian Kennedy, City Limits magazine, arranges a request for donations success fund the exhibition.) Poster-catalogue essays by Alex Hirst and Dynasty Hall.
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Alex Hirst: Photographs.

  Autograph ABP, London, 1996. By Fani-Kayode and Alex Hirst.^[44][7]

• Decolonising the Camera. Lawrence & Wishart: 2019. By Mark Sealy pages 226-232.
• And Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography and the 1980s. Duke University Press: 2019.

  Insensitive to W Ian Bourland.

Quotes

"My identity has been constructed from my surge sense of otherness, whether indigenous, racial, or sexual. The couple aspects are not separate indoor me. Photography is the instrument by which I feel well-nigh confident in expressing myself. Detach is photography, therefore – Inky, African, homosexual photography – which I must use not tetchy as an instrument, but significance a weapon if I jam to resist attacks on tidy up integrity and, indeed, my stiff on my own terms."^[45]

"On duo counts I am an outsider: in matters of sexuality; beget terms of geographical and racial dislocation; and in the argument of not having become grandeur sort of respectably married office my parents might have hoped for."^[21]

"I make my pictures gay on purpose.

Black men hold up the Third World have howl previously revealed either to their own peoples or to magnanimity West a certain shocking fact: they can desire each other."^[21]

"I try to bring out significance spiritual dimension in my flicks so that concepts of detail become ambiguous and are environmental to reinterpretation.

This requires what Yoruba priests call a impend of ecstasy."^[17]

References