ROTIMI FANI-KAYODE
Nigerian
As an African artist whose work engages issues of
diaspora and projects multiple subject positions,
Rotimi Fani-Kayode often described himself as an
outsider in three distinct ways; within his African
family, which navigated modern Britain with a tra-
ditional spiritual identity; as a gay man in an intol-
erant black community; and as a black artist in a
racist society:
My identity has been constructed from my own sense of
otherness, whether cultural, racial, or sexual. The three
aspects are not separate within me. Photography is the
tool by which I feel most confident in expressing my-
self. It is photography, therefore—Black, African, homo-
sexual photography—which I must use not just as an
instrument, but as a weapon if I am to resist attacks on
my integrity and, indeed, my existence on my own
terms.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born to a prominent
Yoruba family in Lagos, Nigeria in 1955. His fa-
ther, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, was a respected
high priest and notable politician. Indeed, the Ka-
yode family was well regarded for their spiritual
responsibilities in their hometown of Ife, a sacred
city in southwestern Nigeria regarded as the spiri-
tual center of Yoruba culture. But when a military
coup and civil war threw Nigeria into turmoil in
1966, Fani-Kayode and his family moved to Eng-
land and settled in the seaside resort town of
Brighton. He continued his education there until
the age of 21, when he traveled to the United States
to further his academic career. While his desire was
to study fine arts, he compromised with his parents’
wishes for him and also studied economics. After
receiving a B.A. from Georgetown University in
Washington D.C. in 1980, Fani-Kayode moved to
New York and completed an M.F.A. in fine art
and photography at the Pratt Institute in 1983.
It was during his graduate studies that Fani-
Kayode began making iconic and dramatic color
portrait photographs of himself and other black
men, nude or dressed in traditional Yoruba cloth-
ing. Such images laid the important formal and
critical framework for his later photographic
works, which explored issues of race, masculinity,
homoeroticism, and nationality, often involving a
sophisticated and ambiguous mix of African and
Western iconography. Upon his return to England
after completing his graduate studies in 1983, Fani-
Kayode met his partner photographer/filmmaker
Alex Hirst, and began an important personal and
collaborative relationship. The two moved to Lon-
don, and Fani-Kayode continued his focus on
part-autobiographical and mythical portraits; pur-
suing the theme of the male black body as a subject
of desire.
Although his work is sometimes regarded as
similar to the early 1980s work of American photo-
grapher Robert Mapplethorpe, in truth Fani-Ka-
yode’s work pushes beyond simple references to
gay iconography. Indeed, many of his photographs
say as much about postcolonial issues and racism
in contemporary British society as they do about
gay sexuality. In this regard, it is useful to remem-
ber that Fani-Kayode’s career in the 1980s coin-
cided with the years of political leadership by Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher, a conservative tenure
that witnessed several race riots in Britain. In
response to his personal experience and social
environment, in 1987 Fani-Kayode co-founded
the London-based organization Autograph, The
Association of Black Photographers, a group that
remains vibrant and active to this day.
In the same year, Fani-Kayode published his first
book,Black Male/White Male(1987), a collection
of photographs consisting of intimate portraits
made in the early to the mid-1980s, including an
image of American writer Essex Hemphill, and ac-
companied by text by Hirst. The photographs
explored formal aesthetics of color photography in
a dynamic manner and also challenged stereotypi-
cal views on race, interracial relationships, and
sexuality. Photographs from this period also recog-
nize the photographer’s own spiritual background
as an integral part of this investigation. In ‘‘Bronze
Head’’ (1987), the bust of a Yoruba god, customa-
rily seen as signifying an artist’s spirit, is portrayed
in an image of sodomy. In trying to reconcile the
notion that the traditions of his Yoruba culture
reject homosexuality, Fani-Kayode attempted to
create images that rejected profanity and insteadFANI-KAYODE, ROTIMI