Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955–1989)

November 2 – December 1, 2019
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 2, 6 – 9 PM

Iceberg Projects is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by the Nigerian-born artist Rotimi Fani-Kayode; this will be the artist’s first solo show in Chicago. During his brief career – he died before his time in 1989, during the height of the AIDS crisis in Europe and the US – Fani-Kayode produced a body of visionary work that took up many challenges of the 1980s that are still pressing today: race and racism in the art world, representing complex and intersectional identities, and balancing individual creativity with collective action in the face of discrimination.

On the one hand, Fani-Kayode thought of his camera as a weapon to fight against repressive regimes and his own erasure; on the other, he drew on a global range of art-historical precedents to create tableaux of profound beauty.

The exhibition is an Autograph ABP touring exhibition presented with the arts non-profit Light Work, curated by Mark Sealy and Renée Mussai. The Iceberg Project presentation is made possible by generous financial support from Northwestern University’s Department of Art History and Black Arts Initiative. The initial reproduction of works for Rotimi Fani-Kayode's (1955-1989) were displayed at Syracuse University Art Galleries in 2016. The show at Iceberg Projects will include newly commissioned prints arranged by Ian Bourland and subsequently travel to Georgetown University, opening in 2020.

Art, Intersectionality, and Activism: A Conversation Commemorating Rotimi Fani-Kayode

With Deana Haggag, Derrick Woods-Morrow, Solveig Nelson, and Greg Foster-Rice

Wednesday, November 6th, 6pm
DePaul Art Museum

Moderated by Ian Bourland

Feel Me?

Richard Roe: A Reading with Tyler Coburn
Sauna!

Wild You
Jared Buckhiester: Fumbling Heart

Kevin Killian: Spreadeagle
Steffani Jemison: Revelation
David Wojnarowicz: Flesh of My Flesh

John Schacht: “In a house, Tinted and Patterned”
A. Laurie Palmer: Sensing Connection to the Time Left

Hervé Guibert: How could it be otherwise?
Dani Leventhal and Sheilah Wilson: Stack for Carrington’s Hyena
The First Ritual Retreat on the Viability of Kidnapping

Arnold J. Kemp: The Stupidity of Belief
Fruiting Bodies

Broken Flag
Ladies Almanack Book Brunch
George Kuchar: Bocko

Joe Cassan: Bed, Bath, and Beyond
Ben Fain: No in future

Little Dancer Aged 14
Barbara DeGenevieve: Medusa’s Cave
Militant Eroticism: The ART+Positive Archives

Robert Buck / Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Sonambulo, 1995 – 2015

Hunter Reynolds: Survival AIDS / Ryan M Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz: Herma
Nayland Blake and Claire Pentecost: Polypersephony
Meet Me at The Soho House

Steve Reinke: Recent videos
NON COMPLIANCE
Tony Greene: 

Melika Bass: Slider Chamber
Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann: Cryptids
Roads Scholar

Abigail DeVille: XXXXXXX
Rebecca Beachy and Walker Blackwell: The Bearer

Sabelo Mlangeni: Country Girls
Dana DeGiulio: Say Say Say

GURL DON’T BE DUMB: RANCH
Deborah Stratman: The Name is not the Thing named

USED PARTS
Eric May: In the garden
Mark Jackson: Darkness and Light

Faheem Majeed: Modernity: Embedding the Art and Advocacy of Margaret Burroughs
Millie Wilson: Looks Bad
SCULPTURE GARDEN / PAINTING SHOW
Zoe Strauss: On The Beach: Works in Progress Slideshows

Gregg Bordowitz: Talk is the object
Dana Carter: Waiting for Daylight
Curt McDowell: Film screenings
Jason Hanasik: He Opened Up Somewhere Along the Eastern Shore

Lou Mallozzi: Live performance
Cauleen Smith Silent Auction
Sarah Conaway: The Fold

Bernard Williams: Blanket Paintings
Doug Ischar: Engender Trouble
Robert MacNeill: Frozen Music