Iké Udé on Gender Fluidity, Dandyism, and Nollywood Portraits

Nigerian-born, New York-based artist Iké Udé discusses his photographic series Cover Girls (1994), which mimics fashion magazine covers and challenges Western gender binaries. He critiques rigid identity taxonomies and views non-binary as a dogmatic trend. His series Sartorial Anarchy (2010-13) explores masculinity through self-portraits combining male clothing elements. Udé embraces the dandy tradition of Oscar Wilde as a practice of individual sovereignty and creative liberation. He argues that African artists lack equivalent cultural institutions to the West, and that current global-African art often recycles caricatures used to degrade Africans. He calls for building parallel institutions rather than complaining about marginalization. His latest series Nollywood Portraits (2014) stylizes actors and producers from Nollywood, the world's second-largest film industry, using ancient Egyptian motifs and bright colors to counter stereotypes of Africa as backward. The exhibition Iké Udé: Nollywood Portraits runs until February 28, 2023 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC. Udé emphasizes that an image must be visually harmonious to effect social change.