Rotimi fani kayode masque dances

A seminal figure in Black British photography circles in the 1980s, Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s practice was informed by an unflinching interrogation of the intersections between queerness, spirituality, and the African masculinized body. Produced in 1987, Sonponnoi shows the almost naked torso and thighs of a young Black man. Black, white, and pink spots are painted on the figure’s body, whose hands hold five candles—each lit with glowing tongues of fire—between his thighs. Sculptural representations of the Yoruba god of earth and disease, Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, referenced by the work’s title, often depict him as covered with coloured spots. Yet Ṣọ̀pọ̀na is also the god of healing in Yoruba mythology—emphasizing the nuance between and around binaries such as healthy/diseased. One of Fani-Kayode’s last works Every Moment Counts shows the naked back of a young Black man, who is crunched forward in a pose that makes him particularly vulnerable to the photographer’s—and the viewer’s—gaze. A hand, emerging from between his legs, grabs his buttocks from below, heightening the tension of the composition. A white mask, evoking the one plague doctors are said to have worn in the seventeenth century is flanked by thin strands of black hair. The work highlights the spectral threat that HIV posed to queer communities in the 1980s, and the disproportionate exposure Black queer people faced due to both stigma and racism in the health sector and beyond. Fani-Kayode’s bold subversion of Yoruba symbols and systems of representation continue to signal horizons of freedom and resistance for queer Africans today.

Works in the exhibition: Every Moment Counts (1989), photography, 120 x 120 cm; Untitled (1987–88), photography, 120 x 120 cm; Untitled (1987–88), photography, 120 x 120 cm. Courtesy of The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm

Nigerian photographer (1955–1989)

Rotimi Fani-Kayode (20 April 1955 – 21 December 1989), born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode, was a Nigerian photographer who at the age of 11 moved with his family to England, fleeing from the Biafran War. A seminal figure in British contemporary art, Fani-Kayode explored the tensions created by sexuality, race and culture through stylised portraits and compositions. He created the bulk of his work between 1982 and 1989, the year he died from AIDS-related complications.

Early life and education

Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 20, 1955. His father, Chief Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode (1921-1995), was a politician and chieftain of Ifẹ, an ancestral Yoruba city. His mother was Chief (Mrs.) Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode (nee Sa'id) (1931-2001). Rotimi had four siblings, including Femi Fani-Kayode, his younger brother.

The Fani-Kayode family moved to Brighton, England, in 1966, after the military coup and the ensuing civil war in Nigeria. Rotimi went to a number of British private schools for his secondary education, including Brighton College, Seabright College, and Millfield, and then moved to the United States in 1976.

Rotimi his BA degree in Fine Arts and Economics from Georgetown University in 1980. He earned his MFA degree in Fine Arts and Photography at the Pratt Institute in 1983. While studying at Pratt, Rotimi became friendly with Robert Mapplethorpe, who he has claimed

Grapes, 1989 © Rotimi Fani-Kayode, courtesy Autograph ABP & Tiwani Contemporary, London.

This text was written for Photomonitor in response to Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955 – 1989) at Tiwani Contemporay, London, in collaboration with Autograph ABP (19 September 2014 – 1 November 2014). Published: 4 October 2014.

Rotimi Fani-Kayode articulated three forms of displacement: ‘On three counts I am an outsider: in matters of sexuality; in terms of geographical and cultural dislocation and in the sense of not having the sort of respectably married professional my parents might have hoped for’. [1] The question of displacement is never resolved. Historical tensions between those who appear certain of their citizenship (of their status in the world as social and political beings) and those who occupy spaces that are less sure, somewhat precarious, remain.

Much has been written about Fani-Kayode whose father, a prominent Yoruba political figure and leader, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, moved his family from Nigeria to Britain in 1966; fleeing violent events leading to the Biafran Civil War (1967-1970). Fani-Kayode was eleven at the time. He grew up in England and after he finished school he studied in the United States: at Georgetown University (Washington, DC.) and at the Pratt Institute (New York). Following an MFA in Fine Arts and Photography at Pratt, Fani-Kayode settled in Britain in 1983 and met his partner and collaborator the writer and artist Alex Hirst (1951-1992). Olu Oguibe positions Fani-Kayode as one of a generation of Nigerian born artists, who during the course of the late 1980s, ‘began to register their presence in the art world, especially in the metropolises of the west’. [2]

The retrospective exhibition at Tiwani Contemporary marks the 25anniversary of Fani-Kayode’s death and is staged in partnership with Autograph ABP which the artist co-founded in 1988. In 2011, at Rivington Place, Autograph ABP curated the first major exhibitio