Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Tranquility of Communion | Wexner Center for the Arts

Hales is delighted to announce that Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Tranquility of Communion is on view at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, OH, USA though 5 January 2025. Organized in partnership with Autograph (London), this exhibition is the first North American survey of Fani-Kayode's work and archives.

 

Beginning in the early 1980s, Fani-Kayode (1955-1989) developed a photographic practice that refused categorization, cutting across cultural codes, gender norms, and artistic traditions. Born into a prominent Nigerian family, Fani-Kayode emigrated to London in the 1960s, seeking political refuge during civil war. As an art student in the United States, he came to negotiate his outsider status along multiple axes, balancing his family heritage and immigration status alongside his own queer sexuality and exposure to underground subcultures. Channeling these multiple facets of his identity into photography, Fani-Kayode generated a remarkable body of images over the course of a career cut tragically short by his death in 1989.