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Collection Loan
Autograph is loaning 4 photographs from our collection by artist Ajamu X to ARoS Aarhus Art Museum's exhibition Unruly - The Body in Punk.
For more than 30 years, Ajamu has unapologetically celebrated black queer bodies, the erotic sense and pleasure as activism. He has been at the forefront of genderqueer photography, challenging dominant ideas around masculinity, gender, sexuality and representation of black LGBTQ+ people in the United Kingdom.
Featuring around 130 works, the exhibition traces punk’s origins in 1970's London and shows how the movement spread and changed – with a special focus on Berlin's subcultures.
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum
Aros Allé 2, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
Find directions, opening hours, accessibility and ticketing information on ARoS Aarhus Art Museum's website
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Ajamu, Bodybuilder in Bra from the series Black Bodyscapes, 1990
Ajamu, Black Circus Master, 1997
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Ajamu, Self-portrait from the series Black Bodyscapes, 1993
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Ajamu, Self - Portrait on Chaise Lounge, Syracuse, 1998
Ajamu (1963, Huddersfield, UK) is a photographic artist, scholar, archive curator and radical sex activist best known for his imagery that challenges dominant ideas around black masculinity, gender, sexuality, and representation of black LGBTQ+ people in the United Kingdom.
He is the co-founder of rukus! Federation and the rukus! Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer + Archive and one of a few leading specialists on Black British LGBTQ+ history, heritage, and cultural memory in the UK. In 1997, Ajamu was the Autograph x Lightwork artist-in-residence in Syracuse, USA developing a series of self-portraits during his residency. He studied at the Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and is currently an PhD candidate at Royal College of Art, London. In 2022 Ajamu was canonised by The Trans Pennine Traveling Sisters as The Patron Saint of Darkrooms in his hometown Huddersfield and he received an honorary fellowship from the Royal photographic society.
Ajamu’s works have been shown in exhibitions in museums, galleries, and alternatives spaces across globally since the 1990s, his recent solo exhibitions include Archival Senoria at Cubitt Gallery, 2021. As well as included in several thematic group Very Private? at Charleston House, 2022; Fashioning Masculinities, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2022; Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, 2019; Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House, 2019; On our Backs: The Revolution Art of Queer Sex Work, Leslie Lohman Museum, 2019. His works are currently on show as part of the group exhibition A Hard Man is Good to Find! at The Photographers’ Gallery, London. Ajamu’s works are held in collections including Tate, London; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Autograph, London; Neuberger Museum of Art, New York amongst others. His second monograph AJAMU: ARCHIVE was published in 2021.
Banner image: Ajamu, Self - Portrait on Chaise Lounge [detail], Syracuse, 1998. Courtesy the artist and Autograph, London.
Loan preview: 1) Ajamu, Bodybuilder in Bra from the series Black Bodyscapes, 1990. Commissioned by Autograph, London. 2) Ajamu, Black Circus Master, 1997. Courtesy the artist and Autograph, London. 3) Ajamu, Self-portrait from the series Black Bodyscapes, 1993. Courtesy the artist and Autograph, London. 4) Ajamu, Self - Portrait on Chaise Lounge, Syracuse, 1998. Courtesy the artist and Autograph, London.
About the artist: Ajamu signing prints of Power Drill Heels at Autograph, 2021. Courtesy Renée Mussai.
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