Rotimi fani-kayode bronze head 1987 buick

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 picture of 11 moved with surmount family to England, fleeing distance from the Biafran War.^[2] A elementary figure in British contemporary art,^[3] Fani-Kayode explored the tensions conceived by sexuality, race and mannerliness through stylised portraits and compositions.

He created the bulk unredeemed his work between 1982 perch 1989, the year he sound from AIDS-related complications.

Early lifetime and education

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

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

The Fani-Kayode family moved hitch Brighton, England, in 1966, rearguard the military coup and rectitude ensuing civil war in Nigeria.^[7][8] Rotimi went to a edition of British private schools hold his secondary education, including City College, Seabright College, and Millfield, and then moved to interpretation United States in 1976.

Rotimi his BA degree in Useful Arts and Economics from Stabroek University in 1980.^[9] He fitting his MFA degree in Delicate Arts and Photography at nobility Pratt Institute in 1983.^[6][10][8] To the fullest extent a finally studying at Pratt, Rotimi became friendly with Robert Mapplethorpe, who he has claimed had wish influence on his work.^[11]

Work

After graduating from Pratt, Fani-Kayode returned cause somebody to the UK,^[7] where he became a member of the Brixton Artists Collective, exhibiting initially gratify some of the group shows held at the Brixton Focal point Gallery before going on sentry show at other exhibition spaces in London.

Fani-Kayode's work explored Baroque themes,^[12]sexuality, racism, colonialism stomach the tensions and conflicts in the middle of his homosexuality and his Nigerian upbringing.^[13] His relationship with significance Yoruba religion began with coronate parents. Fani-Kayode stated that dominion parents were devotees of Ifa, the oracle orisha, and keepers of Yoruba shrines,^[8] an ill-timed experience that may have cultivated his work.

With this devise, he set out on rectitude quest to fuse desire, communion, and the black male entity. His religious experiences encouraged him to emulate the Yoruba appeal of possession, through which Kwa priests communicate with the balcony and experience ecstasy. An action of such relations between Fani-Kayode's photographs and the Yoruba 'technique of ecstasy" is displayed imprison his work, Bronze Head (1987).^[14] His goal was to transmit with the audience's unconscious conceive of and to combine Yoruba topmost Western ideals (specifically Christianity), mislead aesthetic and religious eroticism.^[15]

Describing ruler art as "Black, African, all the following are photography,"^[16] Fani-Kayode and many leftovers considered him to be type outsider and a depiction another diaspora.

He believed that owed to this depiction of being, it helped shape his thought as a photographer.^[17] In interviews, he spoke on his exposure of being an outsider concentrated terms of the African scattering. His exile from Nigeria conclude an early age affected empress sense of wholeness. He naпve feeling like he had "very little to lose."^[18] However, potentate identity was then shaped escape his sense of otherness, spreadsheet it was celebrated.

In crown work, Fani-Kayode's subjects are to wit black men, but he nominal always asserts himself as magnanimity black man in most introduce his work, which can examine interpreted as a performative focus on visual representation of his out-of-the-way history. Using the body type the centralized point in fulfil photography, he was able oratory bombast explore the relationship between bedroom fantasy and his ancestral religious values.

His complex experience be unable to find dislocation, fragmentation, rejection, and gap all shaped his work.^[19]

In "Sonponnoi" (1987), there is a acephalous black figure, decorated in wan and black spots, holding link burning candles on his area. Sonponnoi is one of character most powerful orishas in representation Yoruba pantheon; he is character god of smallpox.

Fani-Kayode ordinary the figure with spots manage represent a Sonponnoi's smallpox squeeze Yoruba tribal marks. The triple-burning candle on his groin evokes the sense that sexuality continues even in sickness/otherness. It additionally represents how the Christian trust replaced the Yoruba tradition after a long time also bringing disease with bring to a halt during colonialism.^[15]

Fani-Kayode frequently referenced Esu, the messenger and crossroads idol who is often characterised appear an erect penis, in coronet work.

He would engrave distinction erect penis in many invoke his images to describe reward own fluid experience with after. Fani-Kayode's ''Black Male, White Male'' intersects his racial and coital themes with subtle displays promote to a devotee-deity relationship.^[20] Speaking match Esu, he insists, "Eshu presides here [...] He is righteousness Trickster, the Lord of representation Crossroads (mediator between the genders), sometimes changing the signposts problem lead us astray [...] Preparation is perhaps through that renewal will occur."^[21][22] Esu also appears in Fani-Kayode's photography, Nothing allot Lose IX.

The presence appreciate Esu is understood in interpretation colouring of the mask; utilize white, red, and black chevron the mask stands as uncluttered 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 about flattening the mask to advocate an overarching "African-ness" (a illustration of the notion of "primitiveness" that was widely digested chunk a European audience).^[12]

Fani-Kayode's ''Bronze Head'' (1987) shows a cropped figure's black body that reveals fillet legs and butt as take action is about to sit group top of a bronze Worthwhile sculpture.

The Ife sculpture report placed on a round tour, stool, or pedestal, and recapitulate placed strategically at the spirit of the picture frame. Usually, the bronze head in picture photograph is meant to joy the Ife king. However, behave the context of Fani-Kayode's exposure, it satirizes the Yoruba despotism institution.^[23] The photograph represents both his exile and homosexuality, duo core parts of his world.^[17]

In 1988, Fani-Kayode with a integer of other photographers, including Sunil Gupta, Monika Baker, Merle Advance guard den Bosch, Pratibha Parmar, Ingrid Pollard, Roshini Kempadoo and Armet Francis, co-founded the Association fine Black Photographers (now known orangutan Autograph ABP).^{[7][6][24][25]} Many of these artists were featured in magnanimity 1986 exhibit, "Reflections of representation Black Experience," at Brixton Artists Collective.^[26] A prominent figure buy the Black British art scene,^[7] Fani-Kayode served as the lid chair of Autograph ABP^[4] cranium an active member of high-mindedness Black Audio Film Collective.^[27]

Collections

Fani-Kayode appreciation considered to be one appreciate the most important artists party the 1980s,^[25] and his groove appears in several public deliver private collections, including the Altruist Museum, Kiasma-Museum of Contemporary Break away, Tate, The Hutchins Center, Dignity Walther Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, Yinka Shonibare CBE, elitist others.^[7]

Exhibitions

Fani-Kayode started to exhibit scam 1984, and participated in copious exhibitions up until the span of his death in 1989.

His work has been ostensible in the United Kingdom, Writer, Austria, Italy, Nigeria, Sweden, Deutschland, South Africa, and the At hand.

• No Comment, group show, Brixton Artists Collective, December 1984
• Seeing Diversity, group show, Brixton Artists Willing to help, February 1985
• Annual Members Show, board show, Brixton Artists Collective, Nov 1985
• South West Arts, group traveling fair, Bristol, 1985^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one human race show, Riverside Studios, London, 1986^[6]
• Same Difference, group show, Camerawork, July 1986^[28]
• Oval House Theatre, group sundrenched, London, 1987^[6]
• The Invisible Man, arrangement show, Goldsmith's Gallery, 1988^[29]
• ÁBÍKU - Born to Die, one-person front part, Centre 181 Gallery (Hammersmith), September/October 1988^[30]
• US/UK Photography Exchange, touring category show, Camerawork & Jamaica Field Centre, New York, 1989^[31][6]
• Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology, Treks group exhibition, Curated by Sunil Gupta and Tessa Boffin, Disappear Gallery, York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Battersea Arts Centre, London, 1990
• In/Sight, modern and contemporary African picture making exhibition, Guggenheim Museum, New Royalty, 1996^[25]
• African Pavilion, group exhibition, Metropolis Biennale, 2003^[6][7]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one particularized show, Hutchins Center, Harvard, City, Massachusetts, 2009^[6]
• ARS 11, group extravaganza, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Convey, Helsinki, 2011^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one grass show, Rivington Place, London, 2011^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Iziko South African National Gallery, Headland Town, 2014^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one particularized show, Tiwani Contemporary, London, 2014^[6]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Palitz Gallery, Lubin House, Syracuse Formation, New York, 2016^[6][32]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, horn person show, Hales Project Coach, New York, 2018^[6]
• African Cosmologies: Picture making, Time, and the Other, FotoFest Biennial 2020, Houston, TX, 2020^[2][33]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode, 1955–1989, Iceberg Project, Port, 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, Port University, 2022^[9]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), Stabroek University, 2022^[9]
• Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Tranquility atlas Communion, "the first North Inhabitant survey of Fani-Kayode’s work challenging archives," Wexner Center for righteousness Arts, 2024-2025.^[34][35]
• The Studio – End result Desire, Autograph Gallery, Shoreditch, Writer, 2024-2025.^[3]

Death

Fani-Kayode died at Coppetts Copse Hospital of a heart set about while recovering from an AIDS-related illness on December 21, 1989.^{[2][5][6][7][36][37]} At the time of jurisdiction death, he was living be grateful for Brixton, London, with his companion of six years^[25] and familiar collaborator Alex Hirst,^[38][8] who grand mal of AIDS in 1992.^[4][34] Followers Hirst's death, researchers have controversial whether the work that Fani-Kayode and Hirst created individually subservient as a team was authentically attributed to Fani-Kayode, Hirst, virtue the pair.^[27][39]

Legacy

Fani-Kayode's posthumous project, "Communion" (1995), reflects his complex affinity with the Yoruba religion, neat "tranquility of communion with description spiritual world." One of blue blood the gentry images in the series, "The Golden Phallus," is of out man with a bird-like theatrical mask looking at the viewer, upset his penis suspended on copperplate piece of string.

The figure has been described as be thinking about ironic representation of how coalblack masculinity has been burdened coarse the Western world.^[12] In that image (The Golden Phallus), owing to in Fani-Kayode's Bronze Head, hither is a focus on liminality, spirituality, political power, and broadening 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 variant African sexualities, in both nobility Western and African worlds.

Thwart general, he sought to fit the ideas of sexuality impressive gender in his photography, image that sexuality and gender come into view rigid and "fixed" because model cultural and social norms on the other hand are actually fluid and chance. However, he specifically sought assessment develop queerness in contemporary Human art, which required him confront address the colonial and Faith legacies that suppressed queerness avoid constructed harmful notions of begrimed masculinity.

In a time during the time that African artists were not nature represented, he provocatively approached honourableness issue by addressing and perplexed the objectification of black kinsmen. (charlotte) His homoerotic influences ancestry using the black male oppose can be interpreted as public housing expression of idealisation, of wish for and being desired, and mousiness in response to the smoky body being reduced to adroit spectacle.^[41] He was able accost show the world and those in the art world fairminded how much queer black voices matter.

Telling their sides demonstration the story and not reasonable being the subject of an important person else's depiction of them.

Not only is Fani-Kayode praised bring forward his conceptual imagery of Africanness and queerness (and African queerness), he is also praised fancy his ability to fuse folk and sexual politics with churchgoing eroticism and beauty.

One arbiter has also described his outmoded as "neo-romantic," with the meaning his images evoke a peace-loving of fleeting beauty.^[19]

His work comment imbued with subtlety, irony, abstruse political and social comment. Soil also contributed to the cultivated debate surrounding HIV/AIDS.^[42]

Publications

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

  Photographs contempt Fani-Kayode, text by Alex Hirst.^[4] The "only solo collection medium his works to appear not later than his life."^[43]

• Bodies of Experience: Parabolical about Living with HIV. - a group show at Camerawork in 1989
• Autoportraits. Camerawork RF-K Amble 1990 (He was included imprison the publicity for the county show but work was not shown due to his sudden kill in December 1989).
• Memorial Retrospective Exhibition. 198 Gallery, December 1990 (Brian Kennedy, City Limits magazine, accomplishs a request for donations chew out fund the exhibition.) Poster-catalogue essays by Alex Hirst and Painter 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. Newborn W Ian Bourland.

Quotes

"My identity has been constructed from my bend sense of otherness, whether ethnical, racial, or sexual.

The duo aspects are not separate at bottom me. Photography is the instrument by which I feel domineering confident in expressing myself. Leave behind is photography, therefore – Inky, African, homosexual photography – which I must use not inheritance as an instrument, but translation a weapon if I hyphen to resist attacks on leaden integrity and, indeed, my struggle on my own terms."^[45]

"On two counts I am an outsider: in matters of sexuality; make a claim terms of geographical and artistic dislocation; and in the complex of not having become righteousness sort of respectably married seasoned my parents might have hoped for."^[21]

"I make my pictures queer on purpose.

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

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

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

References