Nollywood Portraits

The cinema of Nigeria, often referred to as “Nollywood”, a term coined in the mid-1990s to describe Nigeria’s vibrant, film industry consists of movies produced in the country but watched all over Africa and largely by Africans in the diaspora.
The history and development of the Nigerian motion picture industry is sometimes generally classified in four main eras: the Colonial era, Golden Age, Video film era and the emerging New Nigerian cinema. The book presents a selection of photographic portraits by Iké Udé depicting some of the major Nigerian actors and actress, television presenters, directors and producers: from Genevieve Nnaji, Alexx Ekubo and Kunle Afolayan to Gideon Okeke, Chioma Ude and Osas Ighodaro.
With his ongoing photographic self-portraits, Nigerian-born Iké Udé explores a world of dualities: photographer/performance artist, artist/spectator, African/postnationalist, mainstream/marginal, individual/everyman and fashion/art. As a Nigerian born, New York based artist, conversant with the world of fashion and celebrity, Udé gives conceptual aspects of performance and representation a new vitality, melding his own theatrical selves and multiple personae with his art.
Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an American historian, literary critic, filmmaker and public intellectual. Chigozie Obioma (born 1986) is a Nigerian writer shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize and has been described, in a New York Times book review, as “the heir to Chinua Achebe.” Olu Oguibe is a Nigerian-born American artist and intellectual, Professor of Art and African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Sarah Nuttall is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and Director of WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) in Johannesburg South Africa. Helen Trompeteler is Curator of Photographs of the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK. Toni Kan holds both M.A and B.A degrees in English Literature from the Universities of Lagos and Jos (in Nigeria) respectively and is the author of 4 critically acclaimed works of fiction and poetry. Osahon Akpata, born in Lagos, Nigeria, published his first novel at age 11 and contributes articles to several magazines and blogs including Vogue Italia, Forbes Africa and ONE Blog. Binyavanga Wainaina is a Kenyan author, journalist and winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing.
Chicago, Contemporary Photography Museum
20 ottobre – 23 dicembre 2016