“To watch a ‘hair artist’ going through his precise gestures, like an artist making a sculpture, is fascinating. Hairstyle are an art form,”
"J.D. ’Ohai Ojeikere (b.1930) is a much respected figure in Nigeria, best known for a series called Hairstyles, which now numbers more than a thousand images. Each is a wonderful, ephemeral sculpture captured for posterity by an artist who combines the instincts of an anthropologist and an archivist"
John MacDonald, Sydney Morning Herald, August 24, 2013
One of the oddities of this series is that Ojeikere so often photographs the back of a woman’s head, giving his pictures an abstract dimension. Even though the hairstyles are fashion statements and testaments to the subject’s originality, Ojeikere is not out to shoot portraits. The women are merely the models, or the vehicles, that carry these living sculptures. The hairdos are not constructed in the studio but found on the streets, in the workplace, at parties and social gatherings.
As a subject there is much more to the hairstyles than meets the eye. To the trained observer, they are full of information, conveying messages about social and marital status, tribal or family affiliations. Some hairstyles have ceremonial significance and may only be worn by princesses. The most elaborate examples can take a week to prepare. At the beginning of the project, in 1968, Ojeikere found that many women refused to be photographed, fearing the evil eye of the camera would steal their life force
J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere was raised in a small village in rural southwestern Nigeria. In 1950, he bought a modest Brownie D camera, and a neighbour taught him the rudiments of photography. In 1951 he began to seek work from the Ministry of Information in Ibadan, repeatedly sending the same letter: “I would be very grateful if you would use me for any kind of work in your photographic department.” His persistence paid off in 1954, when he was offered a position as a darkroom assistant. Just as Nigeria was shedding colonial rule in 1961, he became a still photographer for Television House Ibadan, a division of the Western Nigerian Broadcasting Services, the first television station in Africa. Jazz musician Steve Rhodes was director of programming and Ojeikere has recalled, the spirit of the time: “Just after independence, we were full of ideas and energy. We were going to conquer the world.”
In 1963 he moved to Lagos to work for West Africa Publicity. 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. This body of work, now consisting of thousands of images, has become a unique anthropological, ethnographic, and documentary national treasure. Most African photographers of his generation only worked on commission; this project, unique of its kind, flourished without any commercial support.
Courtesy MAGNIN-A website
Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New-York
Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris
Centre Pompidou, Paris
The Art Institute of Chicago
Princeton University Art Museum
Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris
QAGOMA, Brisbane