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Collection Loan
Autograph is loaning 11 photographs from our collection by artists Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Maxine Walker to The New Art Gallery Walsall's exhibition Ten.8 afterimage.
The exhibition explores the legacy and enduring impact of Ten.8 (1979–1992), a photography journal that emerged from the Midlands’ radical cultural and political landscape. It offered new ways of thinking about photography’s social, cultural and political responsibilities. Founded in Handsworth in 1979 amid major social and political change in Britain, the journal was shaped by several key moments across the later 20th century, from the Handsworth and Brixton uprisings, Thatcherite neoliberal reforms, and the rise of Black British cultural politics. Ten.8 also engaged with global conversations around feminist movements, gay and lesbian rights and struggles against apartheid, colonialism, and state violence.
The exhibition brings photographic works produced in the 1980s and 1990s into dialogue with more recent artworks, bringing into focus key considerations raised by Ten.8 across the subjects of visibility, power, and representation.
Tate Britain
Millbank
London, SW1P 4RG
Find directions, opening hours, accessibility and ticketing information on The New Art Gallery Walsall's website
Maxine Walker, Her from the series Black Beauty, 1991
Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Cargo of Middle Passage, 1989
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Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Untitled, 1988/2024
%20Maxine%20Walker%2C%20Cleansing.%20From%20the%20series%20Black%20Beauty%2C%201991.%20Courtesy%20of%20the%20artist%20and%20Autograph%2C%20London.jpg)
Maxine Walker, Cleansing from the series Black Beauty, 1991
Maxine Walker, Her Room from the series Black Beauty, 1991
Rotimi Fani-Kayode, City Gent, 1988/2020
Rotimi Fani-Kayode (born 1955, Lagos, Nigeria – died 1989, London, UK) is a widely recognised and seminal figure in contemporary art. At the core of his practice is a critical emphasis on the cultural politics of difference.
Fani-Kayode was born into a prominent Yoruba family before moving to England following the 1966 outbreak of civil war in Nigeria. He studied at Georgetown University and the Pratt Institute in the USA, before settling permanently in London in 1983 where he lived and worked until his early death from a short illness on 21 December 1989.
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 Fani-Kayode’s photographs were created in collaboration with his late partner Alex Hirst, collected in the posthumous publication Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Alex Hirst: Photographs (1996). Alongside his practice as an artist, Fani-Kayode was one of the first chairs of Autograph, London.
was active within the photographic community between 1985 and 1997 and deeply invested in dialogues that advocated black art practices in Britain.
A pioneering artist, she was instrumental in cofounding several creative platforms for black female photographers – such as Monocrone Women’s Photography Collective, Women + Photography and Polareyes – and participated on editorial boards, including at Autograph (then known as the Association of Black Photographers).
During this time, Walker regularly reviewed exhibitions and wrote features highlighting the work of her peers, such as Joy Gregory, Adrian Piper and Ingrid Pollard. Walker’s main themes, in her own words, ‘involve the black woman and the family worked in a “pot-pourri” of studio, portraiture and documentary.’
In 2019, Autograph opened the first solo exhibition of Walker's work in more than 22 years at our gallery in London, which toured to Midland Arts Centre in 2021. Walker resides in Handsworth, Birmingham.
Banner image: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, In God We Trust [detail]c.1980s. Collection of Autograph, London.
Works on loan: All images courtesy of the artist and collection of Autograph, London. 1) Maxine Walker, Her from the series Black Beauty, 1991. 2) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Untitled, 1988/2024. 3) Maxine Walker, Her Room from the series Black Beauty, 1991. 4) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Cargo of Middle Passage, 1989. 5) Maxine Walker, Cleansing from the series Black Beauty, 1991. 6) Rotimi Fani-Kayode, City Gent, 1988/2020
Images on page: 1) Sunil Gupta, Portrait of Rotimi Fani-Kayode. © and courtesy Sunil Gutpa. 2) Maxine Walker at Autograph, London. Photograph by Zoë Maxwell.
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