1. Rotimi Fani-Kayode, born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode, was a Nigerian photographer who at the age of 11 moved with his family to England, fleeing from the Biafran War.
16 Facts About Rotimi Fani-Kayode
1. 2.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode created the bulk of his work between 1982 and 1989, the year he died from AIDS-related complications.
3.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 20,1955.
4.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode's father, Chief Babaremilekun Adetokunboh Fani-Kayode, was a politician and chieftain of Ife, an ancestral Yoruba city.
5.
The Rotimi Fani-Kayode family moved to Brighton, England, in 1966, after the military coup and the ensuing civil war in Nigeria.
6.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode went to a number of British private schools for his secondary education, including Brighton College, Seabright College, and Millfield, and then moved to the United States in 1976.
7.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode earned his MFA degree in Fine Arts and Photography at the Pratt Institute in 1983.
8.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode's goal was to communicate with the audience's unconscious mind and to combine Yoruba and Western ideals, fusing aesthetic and religious eroticism.
9.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode believed that due to this depiction of himself, it helped shape his work as a photographer.
10.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode adorned the figure with spots to represent a Sonponnoi's smallpox and Yoruba tribal marks.
11.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode frequently referenced Esu, the messenger and crossroads deity who is often characterised with an erect penis, in his work.
12.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode started to exhibit in 1984, and participated in numerous exhibitions up until the time of his death in 1989.
13.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode's work has been exhibited in the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Italy, Nigeria, Sweden, Germany, South Africa, and the US.
14.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode died at Coppetts Wood Hospital of a heart attack while recovering from an AIDS-related illness on December 21,1989.
15.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode was able to show the world and those in the art world just how much queer black voices matter.
16.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode's work is imbued with subtlety, irony, and political and social comment.