Calling attention to both the physicality of the photograph and the material process of image-making in the darkroom, Ajamu X celebrates the beauty and joy of the erotic. In this new group of works, shot in his London studio, Ajamu X captures distinct gestures during intimate moments. The bodies depicted are rendered statuesque and seductive, enshrined in platinum print, one of the most precious forms of photography.
These images are printed on Tosa Washi Japanese-made paper, a precise and delicate choice that reflects the sensual material, form and aesthetics of analogue photography. The tangible aspects of those normally hidden processes which transpire in the wet-based darkroom are amplified in a fine art photographic practice that contrasts with our networked digital culture.
The work of black and LGBTQ+ photographers’ is often appraised largely on the basis of its subject matter and sociopolitical context. Questions of representation are privileged above those of production, even though the two are inextricably linked. The particularities of the image-making process are frequently overlooked. This body of work addresses this shortcoming by placing marks, gestures and ‘mistakes’ at the centre of the work; foregrounding the sensual/material aspects of the physical creation of images whose subject-matter is similarly focused on sensuality.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication featuring a text by maddison moore, an artist-scholar, DJ and Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, Providence USA.
Ajamu X (1963, Huddersfield, UK) studied at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and is currently a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, London. In 2022 he was canonised in his home town by The Trans-Pennine Traveling Sisters as The Patron Saint of Darkrooms and also received an honorary fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society. He is the co-founder (with Dr Topher Campbell) of rukus! Federation/Black LGBTQ Archive and is one of the leading specialists on black queer heritage, history and cultural memory in the UK. rukus! will the subject of a major exhibition at Somerset House 11 October 2024 – 19 January 2025. Most recently, Ajamu X has co-founded Spit & Spider Press with Dr Sheena Calvert, an alternative publishing venture focusing on the radical materiality of the book.
Forthcoming exhibitions in 2024 also include Photographing 80’s Britain: A Critical Decade, Tate Britain, London, This is the end of the world, but it always started with you, Skånes konstförening, Sweden, and Ultraviolet, London (a group exhibition curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley). Recent solo exhibitions include Ajamu: Patron Saint of Dark Rooms, Autograph ABP, London 2023,and Archival Senoria, Cubitt Gallery, 2021. Group shows include A Hard Man is Good to Find! Photographer’s Gallery, London, 2023 Very Private, Charleston House, 2022; Fashioning Masculinities, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2022; Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, 2019; Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House, 2019; On our Backs: The Revolution Art of Queer Sex Work, Leslie Lohman Museum, New York, 2019.
