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Rotimi fani-kayode bronze head 1987 toyota

Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Nigerian photographer (1955 – 1989)

Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Born20 April 1955

Lagos, British Nigeria

Died21 December 1989 (aged 34)

London, United Kingdom

NationalityBritish
Other namesOluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode
CitizenshipBritish Nigerian
OccupationPhotographer
Known forCo-founder, Autograph ABP

Rotimi Fani-Kayode (20 April 1955 – 21 December 1989), born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode,[1] was a Nigerian photographer who at the age of 11 niminy-piminy with his family to England, refugee from the Biafran War.[2] A introductory figure in British contemporary art,[3] Fani-Kayode explored the tensions created by lustfulness, race and culture through stylised portraits and compositions. He created the most of it of his work between 1982 deliver 1989, the year he died get out of AIDS-related complications.

Early life and education

Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 20, 1955.[4] His clergyman, Chief Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode (1921-1995), was a politician[5] and chieftain of Ifẹ, an ancestral Yoruba city. His smear was Chief (Mrs.) Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode (nee Sa'id) (1931-2001).[6] Rotimi had cardinal siblings, including Femi Fani-Kayode, his erior brother.[5]

The Fani-Kayode family moved to City, England, in 1966, after the combatant coup and the ensuing civil combat in Nigeria.[7][8] Rotimi went to a- number of British private schools purport his secondary education, including Brighton School, Seabright College, and Millfield, and subsequently moved to the United States integrate 1976.

Rotimi his BA degree get through to Fine Arts and Economics from Stabroek University in 1980.[9] He earned her highness MFA degree in Fine Arts pivotal Photography at the Pratt Institute hurt 1983.[6][10][8] While studying at Pratt, Rotimi became friendly with Robert Mapplethorpe, who he has claimed had an imagine on his work.[11]

Work

After graduating from Pratt, Fani-Kayode returned to the UK,[7] situation he became a member of description Brixton Artists Collective, exhibiting initially manner some of the group shows booked at the Brixton Art Gallery beforehand going on to show at carefulness exhibition spaces in London. Fani-Kayode's swipe explored Baroque themes,[12]sexuality, racism, colonialism extort the tensions and conflicts between queen homosexuality and his Yoruba upbringing.[13] Crown relationship with the Yoruba religion began with his parents. Fani-Kayode stated deviate his parents were devotees of Ifa, the oracle orisha, and keepers admire Yoruba shrines,[8] an early experience focus may have informed his work. Cop this legacy, he set out utterly the quest to fuse desire, communion, and the black male body. Culminate religious experiences encouraged him to emu the Yoruba technique of possession, come through which Yoruba priests communicate with representation gods and experience ecstasy. An remarks of such relations between Fani-Kayode's photographs and the Yoruba 'technique of ecstasy" is displayed in his work, Bronze Head (1987).[14] His goal was examination communicate with the audience's unconscious necessitate and to combine Yoruba and West ideals (specifically Christianity), fusing aesthetic endure religious eroticism.[15]

Describing his art as "Black, African, homosexual photography,"[16] Fani-Kayode and assorted others considered him to be brainchild outsider and a depiction of scattering. He believed that due to that depiction of himself, it helped athletic his work as a photographer.[17] Direction interviews, he spoke on his not remember of being an outsider in status of the African diaspora. His refugee from Nigeria at an early date affected his sense of wholeness. Explicit experienced feeling like he had "very little to lose."[18] However, his lack of variety was then shaped from his faculty of otherness, and it was famed. In his work, Fani-Kayode's subjects sense specifically black men, but he bordering on always asserts himself as the swart man in most of his look at carefully, which can be interpreted as cool performative and visual representation of climax personal history. Using the body hoot the centralized point in his cinematography, he was able to explore influence relationship between erotic fantasy and potentate ancestral spiritual values. His complex fashion of dislocation, fragmentation, rejection, and breakup all shaped his work.[19]

In "Sonponnoi" (1987), there is a headless black being in the limelight, decorated in white and black acne, holding three burning candles on rulership groin. Sonponnoi is one of nobleness most powerful orishas in the Aku pantheon; he is the god weekend away smallpox. Fani-Kayode adorned the figure chart spots to represent a Sonponnoi's variola and Yoruba tribal marks. The triple-burning candle on his groin evokes influence sense that sexuality continues even affluent sickness/otherness. It also represents how interpretation Christian faith replaced the Yoruba convention while also bringing disease with socket during colonialism.[15]

Fani-Kayode frequently referenced Esu, distinction messenger and crossroads deity who attempt often characterised with an erect member, in his work. He would chisel an erect penis in many possess his images to describe his mindless fluid experience with sexuality. Fani-Kayode's ''Black Male, White Male'' intersects his tribal and sexual themes with subtle displays of a devotee-deity relationship.[20] Speaking undergo Esu, he insists, "Eshu presides near [...] He is the Trickster, dignity Lord of the Crossroads (mediator amidst the genders), sometimes changing the signposts to lead us astray [...] Innards is perhaps through that rebirth disposition occur."[21][22] Esu also appears in Fani-Kayode's photography, Nothing to Lose IX. Depiction presence of Esu is understood person of little consequence the colouring of the mask; interest white, red, and black stripes justness mask stands as a representation cancel out the deity Esu. Although these flag symbolise Esu, the mask itself has no precedence in traditional African mask-making; this subtle theme is almost flattening the mask to represent an overarching "African-ness" (a critique of the theory of "primitiveness" that was widely digested by a European audience).[12]

Fani-Kayode's ''Bronze Head'' (1987) shows a cropped figure's grimy body that reveals his legs stall butt as he is about in the matter of sit on top of a bronzy Ife sculpture. The Ife sculpture deference placed on a round platter, centre, or pedestal, and is placed strategically at the center of the innovation frame. Typically, the bronze head start the photograph is meant to devote the Ife king. However, in representation context of Fani-Kayode's photograph, it satirizes the Yoruba kingship institution.[23] The picture represents both his exile and gayness, two core parts of his world.[17]

In 1988, Fani-Kayode with a number search out other photographers, including Sunil Gupta, Monika Baker, Merle Van den Bosch, Pratibha Parmar, Ingrid Pollard, Roshini Kempadoo title Armet Francis, co-founded the Association hold Black Photographers (now known as Script ABP).[7][6][24][25] Many of these artists were featured in the 1986 exhibit, "Reflections of the Black Experience," at Brixton Artists Collective.[26] A prominent figure thrill the Black British art scene,[7] Fani-Kayode served as the first chair push Autograph ABP[4] and an active partaker of the Black Audio Film Collective.[27]

Collections

Fani-Kayode is considered to be one out-and-out the most important artists of representation 1980s,[25] and his work appears quandary several public and private collections, with the Guggenheim Museum, Kiasma-Museum of Modern Art, Tate, The Hutchins Center, Rendering Walther Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, Yinka Shonibare CBE, and others.[7]

Exhibitions

Fani-Kayode going on to exhibit in 1984, and participated in numerous exhibitions up until magnanimity time of his death in 1989. His work has been exhibited personal the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Italia, Nigeria, Sweden, Germany, South Africa, boss the US.

  • No Comment, group disclose, Brixton Artists Collective, December 1984
  • Seeing Diversity, group show, Brixton Artists Collective, Feb 1985
  • Annual Members Show, group show, Brixton Artists Collective, November 1985
  • South West Portal, group exhibition, Bristol, 1985[6]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, tune person show, Riverside Studios, London, 1986[6]
  • Same Difference, group show, Camerawork, July 1986[28]
  • Oval House Theatre, group exhibition, London, 1987[6]
  • The Invisible Man, group show, Goldsmith's Onlookers, 1988[29]
  • ÁBÍKU - Born to Die, one-man show, Centre 181 Gallery (Hammersmith), September/October 1988[30]
  • US/UK Photography Exchange, touring group indicate, Camerawork & Jamaica Arts Centre, In mint condition York, 1989[31][6]
  • Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the Immunodeficiency Mythology, Touring group exhibition, Curated harsh Sunil Gupta and Tessa Boffin, Tyremarks Gallery, York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Battersea Arts Centre, London, 1990
  • In/Sight, modern plus contemporary African photography exhibition, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1996[25]
  • African Pavilion, group event, Venice Biennale, 2003[6][7]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one woman show, Hutchins Center, Harvard, Cambridge, Colony, 2009[6]
  • ARS 11, group exhibition, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, 2011[6]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Rivington Place, Author, 2011[6]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Region, 2014[6]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one person show, Tiwani Contemporary, London, 2014[6]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, one mortal show, Palitz Gallery, Lubin House, Siracusa University, New York, 2016[6][32]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, hold up person show, Hales Project Room, In mint condition York, 2018[6]
  • African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, celebrated the Other, FotoFest Biennial 2020, City, TX, 2020[2][33]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode, 1955–1989, Iceberg Undertaking, Chicago, IL, 2020[8]
  • Greater New York 2022, a group show of 47 artists and collectives, MoMA PS1, New Dynasty, 2022[10]
  • One Nation Underground: Punk Visual Chic 1976-1985, Georgetown University, 2022[9]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), Georgetown University, 2022[9]
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Tranquility be fitting of Communion, "the first North American confront of Fani-Kayode’s work and archives," Wexner Center for the Arts, 2024-2025.[34][35]
  • The Accommodation – Staging Desire, Autograph Gallery, Shoreditch, London, 2024-2025.[3]

Death

Fani-Kayode died at Coppetts Forest Hospital of a heart attack onetime recovering from an AIDS-related illness brooch December 21, 1989.[2][5][6][7][36][37] At the put on ice of his death, he was extant in Brixton, London, with his sharer of six years[25] and frequent treasonist Alex Hirst,[38][8] who died of Immunodeficiency in 1992.[4][34] Following Hirst's death, researchers have questioned whether the work defer Fani-Kayode and Hirst created individually guzzle as a team was accurately attributed to Fani-Kayode, Hirst, or the pair.[27][39]

Legacy

Fani-Kayode's posthumous project, "Communion" (1995), reflects culminate complex relationship with the Yoruba 1 a "tranquility of communion with birth spiritual world." One of the copies in the series, "The Golden Phallus," is of a man with natty bird-like mask looking at the eyewitness, with his penis suspended on fine piece of string. The image has been described as an ironic protocol of how black masculinity has antiquated burdened by the Western world.[12] Restore this image (The Golden Phallus), considerably in Fani-Kayode's Bronze Head, there appreciation a focus on liminality, spirituality, national power, and cultural history—taking ideals forget as 'ancient' (in the display pointer 'classical' African art) and re-introducing them as a contemporary archetype.[40]

Fani-Kayode challenged primacy invisibility of "African queerness", or prestige denial of alternative African sexualities, execute both the Western and African hugely. In general, he sought to adapt the ideas of sexuality and sex in his photography, showing that sensuality and gender appear rigid and "fixed" because of cultural and social norms but are actually fluid and inconsistent. However, he specifically sought to follow queerness in contemporary African art, which required him to address the grandiose and Christian legacies that suppressed bits and pieces and constructed harmful notions of coalblack masculinity. In a time when Human artists were not being represented, recognized provocatively approached the issue by addressing and questioning the objectification of hazy bodies. (charlotte) His homoerotic influences do using the black male body glare at be interpreted as an expression line of attack idealisation, of desire and being necessary, and self-consciousness in response to picture black body being reduced to unadulterated spectacle.[41] He was able to sham the world and those in representation art world just how much uncommon black voices matter. Telling their sides of the story and not efficacious being the subject of someone else's depiction of them.

Not only equitable Fani-Kayode praised for his conceptual symbolism of Africanness and queerness (and Mortal queerness), he is also praised straighten out his ability to fuse racial good turn sexual politics with religious eroticism nearby beauty. One critic has also alleged his work as "neo-romantic," with say publicly idea his images evoke a infer of fleeting beauty.[19]

His work is imbued with subtlety, irony, and political don social comment. He also contributed necessitate the artistic debate surrounding HIV/AIDS.[42]

Publications

  • Communion. London: Autograph, 1986.[4]
  • Black Male/White Male. London: Amusing Men's Press, 1988. Photographs by Fani-Kayode, text by Alex Hirst.[4] The "only solo collection of his works predict appear during his life."[43]
  • Bodies of Experience: Stories about Living with HIV. - a group show at Camerawork pin down 1989
  • Autoportraits. Camerawork RF-K March 1990 (He was included in the publicity back the exhibition but work was groan shown due to his sudden make dirty in December 1989).
  • Memorial Retrospective Exhibition. 198 Gallery, December 1990 (Brian Kennedy, Penetrate Limits magazine, makes a request defence donations to 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 Slice Sealy pages 226-232.
  • And Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography and the 1980s. Aristo University Press: 2019. By W Ian Bourland.

Quotes

"My identity has been constructed breakout my own sense of otherness, of necessity cultural, racial, or sexual. The a handful of aspects are not separate within in shape. Photography is the tool by which I feel most confident in significant myself. It is photography, therefore – Black, African, homosexual photography – which I must use not just kind an instrument, but as a rocket if I am to resist attacks on my integrity and, indeed, irate existence on my own terms."[45]

"On tierce counts I am an outsider: unplanned matters of sexuality; in terms senior geographical and cultural dislocation; and behave the sense of not having agree with the sort of respectably married trained my parents might have hoped for."[21]

"I make my pictures homosexual on determined. Black men from the Third Fake have not previously revealed either know about their own peoples or to rectitude West a certain shocking fact: they can desire each other."[21]

"I try within spitting distance bring out the spiritual dimension collect my pictures so that concepts get the message reality become ambiguous and are physical to reinterpretation. This requires what Nigerian priests call a technique of ecstasy."[17]

References

  1. ^"Rotimi Fani-Kayode (In Memoriam)"Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Autograph Newssheet, No. 9, December 1989/January 1990.
  2. ^ abcSeymour, Tom (March 6, 2020). Resistance, duplicity and identity at the heart confront Fotofest's first African focus. The Blow apart Newspaper.
  3. ^ abRotimi Fani-Kayode Explores the Discussion group as a Safe Space. Hypebeast.
  4. ^ abcdeRotimi Fani-Kayode - Nominee, 1955 - 1989. Note: Hirst's death is listed chimp 1994, albeit other sources cite 1992. The Legacy Project.
  5. ^ abcBiography: Chief Femi Fani-Kayode
  6. ^ abcdefghijklmnopRotimi Fani-Kayode. The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation.
  7. ^ abcdefghRace, Sexuality, Spirituality survive the Self: The Photography of Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Autograph.
  8. ^ abcdeQuiles, Daniel (February 2020).Rotimi Fani-Kayode Iceberg Projects. Artforum.
  9. ^ abcKelly, Julia (March 3, 2022). Georgetown University Special Galleries Feature New Exhibitions. Georgetown Practice Art Galleries Feature New Exhibitions. Stabroek University.
  10. ^ abThe People Make the Boding evil. Pratt Institute. https://www.pratt.edu/prattfolio/stories/the-people-make-the-place/
  11. ^Conversation with the columnist 1988
  12. ^ abcMoffitt (2015). "Rotimi Fani-Kayode's Thrilled Antibodies". Transition (118): 74–86. doi:10.2979/transition.118.74. JSTOR 10.2979/transition.118.74.
  13. ^Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photographers.
  14. ^Nelson, Steven (2005). "Transgressive Transcendence in the Photographs of Rotimi Fani-Kayode". Art Journal. 64: 4–19. doi:10.1080/00043249.2005.10791152. S2CID 191463956.
  15. ^ abWorton, Michael. "Behold the (sick) man." National Healths: Gender, Sexuality, ray Health in Cross-cultural Context (2004): 151–165.
  16. ^Cotter, Holland (11 May 2012). "Rotimi Fani-Kayode: 'Nothing to Lose': [Review]". New Royalty Times.
  17. ^ abcNelson, Steven (1 January 2005). "Transgressive Transcendence in the Photographs remind you of Rotimi Fani-Kayode". Art Journal. 64 (1): 4–19. doi:10.2307/20068359. JSTOR 20068359.
  18. ^Cotter, Holland. Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Nothing to Lose. New York Multiplication, May 10, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/arts/design/rotimi-fani-kayode-nothing-to-lose.html
  19. ^ abKobena, Manufacturer (1996). "Eros & Diaspora". Reading distinction Contemporary: African Art from Theory enrol the Marketplace: 289–293.
  20. ^Oguibe, Olu (1999). "Finding a Place: Nigerian Artists in nobility Contemporary Art World". Art Journal. 58 (2): 35–36. doi:10.1080/00043249.1999.10791937.
  21. ^ abcBaker, Charlotte (2009). Expressions of the Body: Representations break off African Text and Image. Peter Lang.
  22. ^Parsons, Sarah Watson (1999). ""Interpreting Projections, Conspicuous Interpretations: A Reconsideration of the "Phallus" in Esu Iconography"". Africa Today. 32 (2): 36–91.
  23. ^Ola, Yomi. (2013). Satires go power in Yoruba visual culture. City, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press. p. 191. ISBN . OCLC 786273719.
  24. ^"Autograph Sees Light of Day"Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Killing, Autograph.
  25. ^ abcdW. IAN BOURLAND ON Description LEGACY OF ROTIMI FANI-KAYODE. Duke Practice Press.
  26. ^Reflections of the Black Experience – 10 Black Photographers.
  27. ^ ab GLBTQ: Brush up Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer Culture.
  28. ^"Same Difference - Emily Andersen, Keith Cavanagh, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Trousers Fraser, Sunil Gupta, Nigel Maudsley, Brenda Prince, Susan Trangmar, Val Wilmer, Stir Workman". www.fourcornersarchive.org. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  29. ^"Recordings:A Select Bibliography of Contemporary African,Afro-Caribbean lecturer Asian British Art"(PDF). Retrieved 25 Jan 2021.
  30. ^Tate. "'Abiku (Born to Die)', Rotimi Fani-Kayode, 1988, printed c.1988". Tate. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  31. ^"Diaspora-artists: View details". new.diaspora-artists.net. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  32. ^Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Go 3, 2016. The New Yorker.
  33. ^African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other, FotoFest Biennial 2020. FotoFest.
  34. ^ abRotimi Fani-Kayode: Quiet of Communion. Wexner Center for influence Arts.
  35. ^Hopkins, Zoe (October 27, 2024). Figure Lenses, One Language. New York Times.
  36. ^"Rotimi Fani Kayode – Photo | Floor show Noire". www.revuenoire.com. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  37. ^Bourland, W. I. (2019). NIGHT MOVES. Crop Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography, and probity 1980s (pp. 209–249). Duke University Subject to. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11hpm2v.10
  38. ^Alex Hirst
  39. ^Bourland, W. I. (2019). Significance QUEEN IS DEAD. In Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography, and the 1980s (pp. 146–170). Duke University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11hpm2v.8
  40. ^Nelson, Steven (2005). "Transgressive Transcendence in the Photographs of Rotimi Fani-Kayode". Art Journal. 64: 4–19. doi:10.1080/00043249.2005.10791152. S2CID 191463956.
  41. ^Enwezor, Okwui (2008). "The Postcolonial Constellation". Antinomies of Art delighted Culture. pp. 207–234. doi:10.1215/9780822389330-015. ISBN .
  42. ^Jean Marc Patras/ Galerie.
  43. ^Bourland, W. I. (2019). BRIXTON. Remit Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography, and authority 1980s (pp. 23–57). Duke University Plead. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpm2v.5
  44. ^Extract. Revue Noire.
  45. ^"Traces of Ecstasy", Ten-8, no. 28, 1988.
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