In pictures: Exploring the African male

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29361221

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A retrospective of work by the influential Nigerian photographer, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, marking the 25th anniversary of his death at the age of 34, has gone on show in London. ALL PHOTOS: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, courtesy Autograph ABP and Tiwani Contemporary, London.

The exhibition features a selection of Fani-Kayode's most important photographic works produced between 1985 and 1989. Born in Lagos to a prominent Yoruba family, he moved as a refugee to Brighton, UK, in 1966 and went on to study in the US before settling in Brixton, London.

Fani-Kayode's work explores issues of sexuality and desire, highlighting the tensions between his homosexuality and his Yoruba upbringing.

Fani-Kayode's portraits of the male nude are influenced by surrealism, American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Yoruba culture, along with an emerging Black British ethic focusing on race, gender and cultural identity.

Fani-Kayode's images are an act of cultural translation, iconoclasm, liberation and escape.

Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989) can be seen at Tiwani Contemporary, London, until 1 November 2014.