Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Rotimi Fani-Kayode (* 1955 in Ile-Ife , Nigeria as Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode ; † December 21, 1989 in London ) was a Nigerian-born British photographer, artist and AIDS activist .

Life

Fani-Kayode's family from Ife, the holy city of the Yoruba , was politically and religiously important. His father bore the title of "Balogun", Supreme Warlord, and the title of priest "Akire", keeper of the shrine. On the occasion of the coup d'état in 1966, some of Fani-Kayode's family emigrated to London, he himself studied in the USA , returned to England in 1983 and planned to return to his native Nigeria in 1989, but died in the same year. He was active in AIDS work until his death.

In the 1980s, the diaspora of the former British colonies in Africa formed the politically and not only artistically defined movement of “ Black Britain ”; Fani-Kayode was one of their protagonists alongside Keith Piper , Eddie Chambers , Rasheed Araeen and John Akomfrah . He was also a founding member and first director of “Autograph”, the association of black photographers, and collaborated closely with the Black Audio Film Collective .

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Fani-Kayode's pictures are carefully staged studio recordings with corresponding models that tell of both European and African symbolic worlds, subjects and people. The focus of the photographs is on Christianity as it were on the Orisa religion of his homeland. The mysticism of both religions is skilfully staged, because Fani-Kayode does not believe in the photographic moment; With this strategy he achieves a transcendence of his subject matter that is usually withheld from painting, and it allows him to be closer to Caravaggio's vision than other contemporary photographers.

The topics of Fani-Kayodes revolve not only on religiosity but also on gender, sexuality and same-sex desire . He realized most of his late work with his friend, the English photographer Alex Hirst . The result of this collaboration is a “constructed twilight cross cultural zone”, as Mark Sealy puts it, and a work that celebrates cultural diversity.

Images like “Adebiyi” or “Corn God” have clear references to the Yoruba religion, in which the head is venerated as a representation of the deity and, in particular, twins ; in Fani-Kayode's work, the twins stand for the two cultures in which his life takes place. In addition, as in "Every Moment Counts", there are pictures that exclusively focus on the Christian idea of ​​salvation.

Quotes

• "On three counts I am an outsider: in terms of sexuality, in terms of geographical and cultural dislocation; and in the sense of not having become the sort of respectably married professional my parents might have hoped for. "
• “I am an outsider in three ways: in matters of sexuality, in matters of geographical and cultural uprooting; and in the sense that I have not become the respectably married gentleman with a marital profession that my parents may have wished for. "

Exhibitions

• 1985: B & J Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
• 1987: Misfits , Oval House Gallery, London
• 1988: 181 Gallery, London; Bodies of experience , Camerawork, US / UK tour
• 1989: Submarine Gallery, London; Retrospective , 198 Gallery, London
• 1990: Ecstatic Antibodies , Battersea Arts Center, London
• 1991: Retrospective , The Black Art Gallery, London
• 1992: Center Culturel Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris
• 1995: Communion , Impressions Gallery, York; Camden Arts Center, England

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Other Journey: Africa and the Diaspora. Edited by the Kunsthalle Krems ( Simon Njami , Ulrike Davis-Sulikowski, Markus Mittringer). Publishing house Adolf Holzhausen's successor GmbH. Vienna, 1996. ISBN 3-900518-46-7 .