Ik Ud - Nollywood portraits - Ik Ud

The cinema of Nigeria is often referred to as Nollywood, a term coined in the mid-1990s to describe Nigeria's vibrant, film industry consisting of movies produced in the country but watched all over Africa and largely by Africans in the diaspora.


This book presents a selection of photographic portraits by Ik Ud depicting some of the major Nigerian actors and actresses, television presenters, directors, and producers. With his ongoing photographic self-portraits, Nigerian-born Ik Ud explores a world of dualities: photographer/performance artist, artist/spectator, mainstream/marginal, African/postnationalist, individual/everyman, and fashion/art. As a Nigerian-born, New York-based artist conversant with the world of fashion and celebrity, Ud gives conceptual aspects of performance and representation a new vitality, melding his own theatrical selves and multiple personae with his art.