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Introducing Autograph’s new exhibition, featuring previously unseen works by Rotimi Fani-Kayode, exploring a radical vision of culture, intimacy, desire and pain.
Our current exhibition, Rotimi Fani-Kayode: The Studio – Staging Desire, shares staged and crafted portraits taken by the artist in his Brixton-based studio, which playfully negotiate the status of being an ‘outsider’.
The free exhibition is on display at Autograph until 22 March 2025.
Here we answer four quick questions that are key to the exhibition.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born in 1955 in Lagos, Nigeria to a prominent Yoruba family. Following the outbreak of civil war, his family moved to England in 1966, and he settled permanently in London in 1983 after completing his studies in the USA.
At the core of Rotimi’s photographic practice is a critical emphasis on the cultural politics of difference. He has said of himself: “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.”
Alongside his practice as an artist, Rotimi became a founding signatory and one of the first chairs of Autograph, then known as the Association of Black Photographers.
Rotimi was a member of the Brixton Artists Collective, and his photographs have been exhibited internationally since 1985, with numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2003, his work featured in the African Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, and today his works are represented in major public and private collectors. Many of his photographs were created in collaboration with his late partner Alex Hirst, collected in the posthumous publication Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Alex Hirst: Photographs (1996).
Rotimi died at the age of 34 on 21 December 1989, during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
The Studio – Staging Desire is the culmination of meticulous research into the artist’s archives, presenting over 30 never-before-seen works. These black and white silver gelatin prints depict staged and crafted portraits which playfully beckon the viewer to embrace new possibilities of the self.
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Untitled, 1989
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Untitled, 1988
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Untitled, 1988
The exhibition focuses on works produced by Rotimi in his studio, which was based in his flat on Railton Road in Brixton. This studio provided the artist with space to live, be free, find love and express himself. It was a sanctuary to explore and visualise black queer self-expression. With an emphasis on gesture, pose and a sense of longing the photographs he produced reveal the complex dynamics of desire.
The exhibition also features a small selection of archival material and a rarely seen film produced in 1991, after Rotimi’s death. Titled Rage and Desire, the film is a tribute to the artist’s life and work, bringing together numerous examples of his photographic work, archival footage, reconstructions, modern dance, and an interview with his partner and collaborator, Alex Hirst.
Rotimi was embedded in his local community in Brixton. He lived in a flat on Railton Road, which was part of the Brixton Housing Co-op and was a member of the Brixton Artists Collective which ran the Brixton Art Gallery (1983 – 1990). This gallery offered exhibition opportunities and enabled the work of artists who were often otherwise unable to access mainstream spaces to show their work. Railton Road was also home to: the Marxist writer and activist CLR James; the Brixton Fairies and the South London Gay Community Centre; Olive Morris and Liz Turnbull - squatters and members of the Black British Panthers; the Race Today collective.
Brixton in the '80s was a radical hub of social and political activity, with communities responding to issues of marginalisation around race, women’s rights, sexuality and homelessness.
"My reality is not the same as that which is often presented to us in western photography. As an African working in a western medium, I try to bring out the spiritual dimensions in my pictures so that concepts of reality become ambiguous and are opened to re-interpretation. This requires what Yoruba priests and artists call a technique of ecstasy."
— Rotimi Fani-Kayode, 1988
Rotimi’s family were devotees of the Ifá divination system, and kept Yourba shrines. The artist was familiar with the Yoruba technique of possession, through which one could communicate with the gods and experience ‘ecstasy’. Rotimi cited these belief systems explicitly in his essay Traces of Ecstasy, published in Ten.8 Magazine in 1987. Their influence became more apparent in his later works, a selection of which you can see in our online gallery, here. You can also read about the role of spirit and faith in Rotimi’s work in this article by artist Evan Ifekoya.
Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic Antibodies), 1989
31 Oct 2024 - 22 Mar 2025
Free exhibition
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Banner image: Rotimi Fani-Kayode: The Studio - Staging Desire exhibition at Autograph. 31 October 2024 - 22 March 2025. Curated by Mark Sealy. Photograph by Kate Elliott.
Images on page: 1) Sunil Gupta, portrait of Rotimi Fani-Kayode. © and courtesy Sunil Gutpa. 2) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Untitled, 1989. © Rotimi Fani- Kayode. Courtesy of Autograph, London. 3) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Untitled, 1988. © Rotimi Fani- Kayode. Courtesy of Autograph, London. 4) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Untitled, 1988. © Rotimi Fani- Kayode. Courtesy of Autograph, London. 5) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic Antibodies), 1989. © Rotimi Fani- Kayode. Courtesy of Autograph, London. 6) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Untitled, 1988. © Rotimi Fani- Kayode. Courtesy of Autograph, London
Autograph is a place to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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