Okhai ojeikere biography of barack

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His formal vocabulary is immediately recognizable: lack of backdrops or props, elegant female sitters, elaborate coiffures, soft lighting, immaculate black-and-white printing. “To watch a ‘hair artist’ going through his precise gestures, like an artist making a sculpture, is fascinating. His indelible impact on photography, cultural documentation, and the preservation of Nigerian heritage continues to inspire generations.

'Okhai Ojeikere (Nigerian, 1930–2014). His son Amaize Ojeikere, who now runs the studio Foto Ojeikere, belongs to the generation of photographers in Nigeria who continue to document the changing cityscape, albeit with different concerns that engage the dysfunctional in these lived spaces. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Joseph and Ceil Mazer Foundation Inc.

Gift, 2010 (2010.167, 2010.168)

Ojeikere was a forerunner of the practice of documentary photography in Nigeria. "[But] all these hairstyles are ephemeral. In the 1970s, he was hired by an advertising company, where he learned the strategies of commercial photography.

Snapshot of J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere's photo album from his series of campus photography.

I want my photographs to be noteworthy traces of them. While 'Okhai Ojeikere would have never indulged in the new generation's hyperrealism, which blatantly encompasses "the beautiful and the ugly," he supported their effort to expand the documentary genre.

View of Foto Ojeikere, Lagos, Nigeria, August 2008.

Beyond his own practice, Ojeikere has been an ineluctable influence for subsequent generations of photographers, whom he nurtured and supported as a mentor. In 1967 he joined the Nigerian Arts Council, and during their festival of the following year he began to take series of photographs dedicated to Nigerian culture.

In Ojeikere's hands, photography became a means to record the transient creativity that articulated Nigerian social and cultural life.

The photographer's appreciation for Nigerian heritage did not remain confined to his studio; rather, it reached and encompassed the urban landscape. Beyond photography, Ojeikere's passion extended to Nigerian culture and architecture.

There is perhaps no better tribute to the legacy of J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere.

Johnson Donatus Aihumekeokhai Ojeikere, known as J.D. Ojeikere, was a renowned Nigerian photographer celebrated for his captivating work centered around Nigerian hairstyles. Lagos: Mandilas Group Limited, 1999.

Ojeikere's fascination with the medium of photography pushed him to explore formal and creative possibilities beyond the documentary genre.

Since then, many new students from Nigeria, Europe and the United States have been researching his practice as well as Nigeria's rich photo history. His exhibitions outside Nigeria, including Switzerland, Japan, Europe, and North America, introduced his work to global audiences.

Today, his legacy lives on through his son, Amaize Ojeikere, who continues to run the "Foto Ojeikere" studio.

I always wanted to record moments of beauty, moments of knowledge."

«On February 2, J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, one of the greatest African photographers of the twentieth century, passed away. © Giulia Paoletti

When I interviewed 'Okhai Ojeikere for the first time back in 2008, he lamented the lack of support that his artistic practice and contemporary art in general had received in his country.

Shortly after Nigeria gained its independence from Britain in 1960, J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere began a remarkable self-assigned project: to record systematically key elements of his native Nigerian culture during the experience of postcolonial cultural transition.