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provoked contemplation of sexual desire and the
act of creation as positive, beautiful concepts.
Another example of Fani-Kayode’s complex post-
modern style can be acknowledged in the part-auto-
biographical image ‘‘White Bouquet’’ (1987). Here, a
standing white man presents a bouquet of white
flowers to his black lover, who lies on a white chaise
longue. Both men are nude and anonymous; their
faces are unseen. The lighting is soft, setting a sen-
sual tone within an ambiguous scene, which points
to the powerful rhetoric of much of Fani-Kayode’s
work. He presents an intimate moment that can be
interpreted several ways, as a homoerotic encounter
or a subversive comment on the racial power rela-
tionship associated with colonialism. Additionally,
in its conceptual reference to Edouard Manet’s
paintingOlympia(1863), the image highlights the
artist’s sophisticated knowledge of European art his-
tory. Images from theCommunionseries (1989) dis-
play a similar sensitivity and theoretical subtlety in
the treatment of the male nude, in what Kobena
Mercer has characterized as an exploration of the
relationship between erotic fantasy and ancestral
death.Communionis a group of photographs that
appear to have been a very personal and final colla-
boration between Fani-Kayode and Hirst, which
were never exhibited while they were both alive.
Fani-KayodediedfromAIDSin1989;Hirstdied
from HIV-related illness three years later.
Although his six-year professional career may be
regarded as brief, Fani-Kayode’s art-making was
intensely personal and politically engaged. The sig-
nificance of his work was consistently overlooked
during his lifetime, probably due in part to the
controversial nature of his chosen subject matter,
but also because of debate about the authorship of
several of his photographs, despite consideration of
the genuine spirit of collaboration he and Alex
Hirst shared. Discussion of Fani-Kayode’s work
in Hall and Sealy’sDifferent(2001), and the inclu-
sion of his photographs in exhibitions like the 50th
Venice Biennale in 2003, point to recently renewed
interest in the Nigerian’s work by curators and
historians who understand his significant role in
having helped shaped various critical discourses in
British photography of the late twentieth century.

SARA-JAYNEPARSONS

Seealso:History of Photography: the 1980s; Photo-
graphy in Africa: An Overview; Postmodernism;
Representation and Race; Robert Mapplethorpe

Biography

Born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode in Lagos,

Nigeria, 1955. Georgetown University, Washington,

DC., B.A. Economics and Fine Art, 1980; Pratt Insti-

tute, Brooklyn, New York, M.F.A. Fine Art and Photo-

graphy, 1983. Founding member and first chair of

Autograph: The Association of Black Photographers,

London, 1987. Died in London, 21 December 1989.

Individual Exhibitions

1985 B&J Gallery; Lagos, Nigeria

1986 Yoruba Light for Modern Living; Riverside Studios,

London

1989 Submarine Gallery; London

1989 Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photographer (1955–1989): Ret-

rospective; 198 Gallery, London

1996 Communion—Selected Works; Impressions Gallery,

York

1999 Communion—Selected Works; Cafe ́Gallery, London

Group Exhibitions

1984 Art Show Gallery; London

1985 No Comment; Brixton Arts Gallery, London

1985 Sacred and Profane Love; South West Arts, London

1986 Same Difference; Camerawork, London

1987 Misfits; Oval House Gallery; London

1989 Bodies of Experience: Stories About Living with HIV;

Camerawork, London

1990 Ecstatic Antibodies; Battersea Arts Centre, London

1992 Foto Fest; Houston, Texas

1994 Significant Losses: Artists who have died from AIDS;

The Art Gallery, University of Maryland; College Park,

Maryland

1996 In/Sight African Photographers, 1940 to the Present;

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1996 The Other Story; Kunst Halle Krems, Austria

1998 Eye Africa; The Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town

2000 Portrait Africa. A Century of Photographic Stand-

points; House of World Cultures, Berlin

2000 Mardi Gras Arts Festival; E1 Gallery, London

2003 Dreams & Conflicts the Dictatorship of the Viewer;

African Pavilion,50thVenice Biennale; Venice

2004 Staged Realities: Exposing the soul in African photo-

graphy 1870–2004; Michael Stevenson Contemporary;

Cape Town

Selected Works

Sonponnoi, 1987

White Bouquet, 1987

Bronze Head, 1987

Nothing to Lose XII (Bodies of Experience series), 1989

Every Moment Counts (fromEcstatic Antibodies), 1989

Tom Peeping, 1989

Communionseries, 1989

FANI-KAYODE, ROTIMI