Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic Antibodies) (1989)

Every Moment Counts (Ecstatic Antibodies) (1989) by Nigerian-born artist Rotimi Fani-Kayode is a chromogenic photograph that brings together spiritual, cultural, and bodily imagery to explore themes of intimacy, mortality, and transcendence. Created in the final year of the artist’s life, the work reflects on the AIDS crisis through a deeply personal and symbolic visual language within queer African art.

Close Looking: Queer African Art and Spirit

A bearded figure, dressed in a red cloak resembling that of a priest or friar, gazes upward with a sense of reverence. His head is encircled by a halo-like crown of white beads, evoking both Christian iconography and Yoruba ritual adornment associated with spiritual authority and ancestral connection.

Resting against him is a younger, partially unclothed man, his body leaning inward, his gaze lowered. The positioning of the two figures creates a sense of intimacy and support—one figure upright and guiding, the other held and possibly in transition.

The composition directs attention toward the younger man’s face. Lines formed by the older figure’s gaze, arm, and the curve of the beaded crown subtly converge, drawing the viewer into this quiet, charged interaction. The image suggests care, protection, and perhaps passage—from one state of being to another.

Fani-Kayode brings together multiple visual traditions. The upward gaze and hand placement recall Christian devotional imagery, while the beaded crown connects to Yoruba spiritual practices, where such adornments signify purity and a relationship to divine forces. Through this fusion, the older figure may be understood as a kind of intermediary—guiding, protecting, or bearing witness.

Dirk Bout’s Christ Crowned with Thorns, c. 1470.

Caravaggio’s St Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, c 1598

The title, Every Moment Counts, takes on particular weight in the context of the late 1980s AIDS crisis. The term “ecstatic” resonates both with spiritual transcendence and with the bodily intensities of queer life. The image holds these meanings in tension: between life and death, pleasure and vulnerability, presence and loss.

Within the exhibition’s theme of Spirit, the work invites us to consider how the body becomes a site of transformation, ritual, and passage. The relationship between the two figures suggests not only care, but a movement between states of being—earthly and spiritual, physical and transcendent.

Reflect and Explore

How do the two figures relate to one another? Do you see this as a moment of support, protection, or transition? What kinds of relationships—spiritual, emotional, or physical—are suggested through their proximity?

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Extended Prompts for Closer Looking

How do the compositional lines in the image guide your attention? Notice how the gaze, arm, and crown direct focus toward the younger figure. What is the effect of this visual structure?

How do you interpret the title Every Moment Counts? Does it suggest urgency, reflection, or the preciousness of time, particularly in the context of illness and mortality?

Compare the relationship between these two figures with those in Fani-Kayode’s Nothing to Lose IX. Do you sense a movement or transition between states—physical, spiritual, or existential?

How does the work draw on both Christian and Yoruba visual traditions? What meanings emerge from this combination of iconographies?

In what ways might the image speak to care, protection, or guidance in moments of vulnerability?

Learn More

• Read more about Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s work and legacy

• Further reading: W. Ian Bourland, Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography and the 1980s (2019)

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Every Moment Counts Rotimi Fani Kayode queer African art

Every Moment Counts Rotimi Fani Kayode queer African art