Autograph ABP presents two major photographic exhibitions: Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), a retrospective of his seminal photographs exploring complex notions of sexuality and cultural dislocation; and Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, a visual testament to lynching as a form of social violence in the United States of America from 1880 to the 1960s. The exhibitions are linked through photography's relationship to historical and contemporary representations of the black body as a site of spectacle.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode's photographs constitute a profoundly personal and politically engaged exploration of homoerotic desire, displacement, and spirituality. His work evokes ancestral memories through provocative symbolism, fusing archetypal motifs from European and African cultures and subcultures, inspired by what Yoruba priests call ‘the technique of ecstasy'. This is Fani-Kayode's first major exhibition in the UK since 1995, and includes key bodies of work alongside archival prints and polaroids. A founding member and the first Chair of Autograph ABP, Fani-Kayode died in 1989 at the age of 34.

Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Every Moment counts (Ecstatic Antibodies), 1989.