Overlooked No More: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Whose Camera Sought a Truer Image of Black Men

New York Times

4 hours ago

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
In the photograph 'Snap Shot,' soft light elegantly caresses an anonymous standing figure in a sensual pose. The figure, who is nude, holds a camera in front of his genitals with the lens pointed at the viewer. The image is striking in its careful balance between strength and fragility: The subject takes the risk of being seen while disrupting the viewer's otherwise voyeuristic gaze.
In another photo, a man wearing a birdlike mask kneels and touches his head while his penis, painted gold, is accentuated by a glowing light.
Both images were created by the photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode, and both were intended to celebrate and reclaim Black male sexuality in the 1980s. It was a time when renowned artists like Robert Mapplethorpe were building a narrative that fetishized Black men by reducing them to erotic objects devoid of individual identities, as noted by scholars like the feminist writer bell hooks. Instead, Rotimi Fani-Kayode placed Black men at the center of his images and presented them with emotional depth and a sensitive intimacy.
'I was used to seeing gay men in terms of popular culture, but they were always white gay men, while Black men were always seen in terms of fear and threat,' the British photographer Ajamu X said in an interview.
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