DOCSLIB.ORG

Shonibare TEXTILE 12 1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Shonibare TEXTILE 12 1 Exhibition120 ExhibitionReview Review Yinka Shonibare MBE: Egg Fight Exhibition Review Yinka Shonibare MBE: Egg Fight Dublin City and Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, February 26–August 30, 2009 In the words of Homi Bhabha, the from the Museum of Contemporary chief effect of colonial power is “the Art in Sydney, Australia, to the production of hybridization” or, in Brooklyn Museum in New York the words of Patrick Brantlinger, and to the National Museum of “imperialisms—indeed, all master/ African Art at the Smithsonian slave relations—are always two- Institution in Washington, DC, the way streets.”1 Few artists have textile historian and critic Jessica demonstrated this as colorfully Hemmings cautioned that there was as the British-born, Nigerian- a “danger of his brightly patterned raised artist Yinka Shonibare. His cloth beginning to feel like a striking use of batik, a wax-printed one-liner.”3 cotton fabric (which originated Earlier and more pointedly, in Indonesian design, was in 2005, the American art historically printed for the Dutch historian Sylvester Okwunodu and British export markets and is Ogbechie argued that Shonibare’s now consumed in contemporary commissioned installation for West Africa) to clothe his headless Documenta 11 in Kassel, in 2002, figurative sculptural tableaux was undermined in its efficacy as have been delighting audiences he had “exchanged a sophisticated in Europe and North America critique of Victorian claims of racial since the 1990s. Deploying what purity for a melodramatic focus Anne Hollander has termed the on explicit scenes of Victorian “symbiotic relation” between debauchery.”4 Cautious of critique fashion and art history and feminist and not wanting to initiate an egg art’s exploitation of cloth and fight, critics such as Ogbechie “clothing as subject” the batik and Hemmings have also placed fabric has become, intentionally particular stress on the serious or not, Shonibare’s leitmotif.2 intellectual rigor underpinning In 2009, as a major mid-career Shonibare’s continued use of retrospective of his work traveled batik to create something that Textile, Volume 12, Issue 1, pp. 120–125 DOI: 10.2752/175183514x13916051793677 REVIEWED BY JOSEPH McBRINN Reprints available directly from the Publishers. Joseph McBrinn lectures in Design History at Photocopying permitted by licence only. Belfast School of Art, the University of Ulster, © 2014 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Belfast, Northern Ireland. Printed in the United Kingdom is as yet, most would agree, far At present I am re-reading from redundant. Indeed, without Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s question since 2000 a spate of Travels (1726), which interests solo shows have demonstrated me on a number of levels. I am Shonibare’s continued particularly interested in the inventiveness and prodigiousness. question of Gulliver’s empathy From the 2002 self-titled show at with the different cultures he The Studio Museum in Harlem, encounters. He sees that they New York to the 2004 Double Dutch are different and they see he is show at the Museum Boijmans Van different … Gulliver’s voyages Beuningen in Rotterdam, to Flower also see him becoming involved Time at London’s Stephen Friedman in internal power struggles in Gallery in 2006, and Jardin d’Amour the lands he visits but he himself at the Musée du quai Branly in is also, at various stages, Paris in 2007, culminating in his both powerful and powerless recent Antipodean–American depending on the context. Which retrospective. However, one brings us back to the question of show that elegantly showcased power and its contexts and how Shonibare’s remarkable creative we assume and in some cases abilities was a small exhibition are beholden to power. (Kent commissioned for the Dublin City 2008: 45) and Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art in 2009, entitled Egg Fight Ireland as a space of unresolved (based on Jonathan Swift’s satirical postcolonial hybridity, within travelog, Gulliver’s Travels), and Europe, seems an ideal location for is the focus of this review. Indeed, Shonibare’s work. In 2001, the Irish as his globetrotting retrospective public got their first opportunity opened in Sydney, Shonibare to see his work when he showed revealed: Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998) in Figure 1 Yinka Shonibare, Egg Fight, 2009. Installation at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. Mannequins, Dutch wax printed cotton fabric, leather boots, replica guns, rope, polystyrene eggs and silicon. 8½m long × 4m wide. Photograph Eugene Langan. Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery (London) and James Cohan Gallery (New York). Exhibition Review 123 the Vantage Point group exhibition him as one of the world’s leading Swift’s book, who bickered bitterly at the Irish Museum of Modern artists and commentators on because in Lilliput they broke the Art in Dublin. The show aimed the ethnic/aesthetic dimensions small end of the egg first and in to bring together contemporary of globalization (Guldemond Blefsucu they broke the big end art “informed by everyday life, 2004: 20). As the best of his first, which was Swift’s satire on addressing current issues such work does, Egg Fight continues the “battle for supremacy between as ecology, technology, popular the deconstruction of the tropes Catholics and Protestants in culture and globalization.”5 and iconoclasm of Europe’s eighteenth-century Europe.”7 The Although criticized for “not having long eighteenth century and its imposing Georgian town house an angle on anything,” the title foundations not in Enlightenment that now houses Dublin’s Hugh itself doing “little more than paper but in militarist imperialist Lane Gallery was an appropriate over the tenuous links between the expansionism, and in this Jonathan setting for Shonibare’s show as it artists,” nevertheless Shonibare’s Swift’s text proved in every way was built in the eighteenth century work was seen as having more a perfect foil for Shonibare. by Lord Charlemont, who, like than “raw novelty value.”6 Fast- The installation, although not Jonathan Swift, was a member of forward a decade and the Egg directly illustrative, contained two the Protestant Anglo-Irish elite who Fight installation at Dublin’s (headless) figures (one Lilliputian opposed the English protectionist Hugh Lane demonstrates that and one Bledfuscudian) shooting policies that left Ireland’s textile Shonibare’s sensitive, if satirical, at each other through a wall of industry in ruins.8 As well as his use of batik as a potent metaphor eggs. This visualized the war installation, Shonibare also showed in visualizing the “horrors of between the empires of Lilliput a selection of his recent Climate colonialism” has established and Blefuscu, in the first section of Shit Drawings, a series of collages Figure 2 Yinka Shonibare, Climate Shit Drawing 7 (Triptych), 2009. Ink, Dutch wax cotton printed textile, newsprint and gold foil on paper. 50.4 cm × 434.4 cm. Photograph Eugene Langan. Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery (London) and James Cohan Gallery (New York). 124 Exhibition Review Figure 3 Installation view of Yinka Shonibare, Egg Fight, 2009 and Climate Shit Drawings, 2009. Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. Photograph Eugene Langan. Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery (London) and James Cohan Gallery (New York). that mediate on the most pressing are actually sewn. Are they more about his ideas on sewing preoccupation of the present outsourced, as so much fashion (does he favor hand or machine?), phase of globalization—climate manufacture is in the West (to as it would strengthen the many change. The imagery depicts the the Third World), or is the artist strategies and approaches he visual vocabulary of the global involved in their facture like the deploys in his complex, and economy including images of many contemporary male artists playful, deconstruction of cultural flowers, airplanes, and scraps of for whom sewing is a central and assumptions about gender, newspapers. subversive practice? The garments sexuality, class, and race and One of the most visual episodes themselves are generally very about the history, and reality, of in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, historically accurate and technically globalization. Egg Fight was a certainly for younger readers, is the accomplished, and Shonibare thought-provoking and visually scene describing the Lilliputians— has openly acknowledged his stimulating show, and perfect in “two hundred sempstresses” and mannequins’ affinities with scale and setting. Shonibare’s “three hundred taylors”—making “dressmaker’s dummies” (Hynes visualization, like Swift’s writings, Gulliver’s gargantuan clothes 2004: 398). However, with so much in the words of Sarat Maharaj (Swift 1994 [1726]: 51). It prompted critical focus on the text/textile “tend[s] to leave us less sure about me to question how the clothes complexity of Shonibare’s work, imagining power as a dominating on Shonibare’s mannequins it would be interesting to know force radiating outwards from a Exhibition Review 125 focal, colonizing source. We are 4. Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, References alerted to the possibility of it being 2005. “Ordering the Universe: Guldemond, Jaap. 2004. Yinka something like a two-way, creative/ Documenta II and the Shonibare: Double Dutch. destructive process—even when Apotheosis of the Occidental Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van ‘the one’ seems to be calling all the Gaze.” Art Journal 64(1): 86. Beuningen. shots” (Maharaj 1991: 89). The work commissioned from Shonibare for Documenta 11 was Hynes, Nancy. 2004. “Yinka Notes entitled Gallantry and Criminal Shonibare: Addressing the 1. Homi K. Bhabha, 1985. Conversation (2002). Wondering Mind.” In Salah Hassan “Signs Taken for Wonders.” 5. Brenda McParland, 2001. and Dadi Iftikhar (eds.), Unpacking Critical Inquiry 12(1): 153. Vantage Point: Ernesto Neto, Europe: Towards a Critical Reading. Patrick Brantlinger, 1996. Rob Pruitt, Michael Raedecker, Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van “A Postindustrial Prelude to Daniel Richter, Ugo Rondinone, Beuningen and NAi Publishers. Postcolonialism.” Critical Inquiry Yinka Shonibare. Dublin: IMMA, 22(3): 466.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Student Handout Presenter: Dr Clare Taylor
    Open Arts Objects http://www.openartsarchive.org/open-arts-objects Student handout Presenter: Dr Clare Taylor Yinka Shonibare, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, 2010, National Maritime Museum, London http://www.openartsarchive.org/resource/open-arts-object-yinka-shonibare-nelson%E2%80%99s-ship- bottle-2010 In this film Dr Clare Taylor looks at a work made by a living artist who works in London, Yinka Shonibare. The subject, materials, and sites she talks about all encourage students to think of their own individual, national and global identity in new ways. The work also turns on its head traditional ideas of a sculpture on a plinth, which often commemorate a person well known in their own time, and reverses ideas about what such a work should be made out of, using a range of materials rather than stone or metal. Before watching the film 1. What do the words ‘Nelson’, ‘message in a bottle’ and ‘Trafalgar Square’ mean to you? 2. What do you think this work represents? 3. What is it made out of? And how is it put together? Are the materials obvious at first glance? 1 4. What function do you think this work serves? After watching the film 1. What effects (aesthetic, social, political etc) do you think the artist was trying to achieve in this work? 2. Has the film helped you define some of the formal elements of the work? Consider scale, subject matter, medium, and other formal elements 3. Does it have a recognisable purpose or function? Does this relate to the time period in which it was made? 4.
    [Show full text]
  • Yinka Shonibare MBE: FABRIC-ATION
    COPENHAGEN, JULY 3RD 2013 PRESS RELEASE Yinka Shonibare MBE: FABRIC-ATION 21. september – 24. november 2013 Autumn at GL STRAND offers one of the absolutely major names on the international contemporary art scene. British-Nigerian Yinka Shonibare is currently arousing the enthusiasm of the public and reviewers in England. Now the Danish public will have a chance to make the acquaintance of the artist’s fascinating universe of headless soldiers and Victorian ballerinas in his first major solo show in Scandinavia. Over the part 15 years Yinka Shonibare has created an iconic oeuvre of headless mannequins that bring to life famous moments of history and art history. With great commitment and equal degrees of seriousness, wit and humour he has mounted an assault on the colonialism of the Victorian era and its parallels in Thatcher’s Britain. In recent years he has widened the scope of his subjects to include global news, injustices and complications in a true cornucopia of media, for example film, photography, painting, sculpture and installation – all represented in the show at GL STRAND. FABRIC-ATION mainly gathers works from recent years, as well as a brand new work created for the exhibition, Copenhagen Girl with a Bullet in her Head. The subjects include Admiral Nelson and his key position in British colonialism, the significance of globalization for the formation of modern man’s identity, multiculturalism, global food production and the revolutions of the past few years in the Arab world. In other words, Shonibare is able, through an original and captivating universe, to present us with the huge complexity that defines our time, as well as the underlying history.
    [Show full text]
  • Artist Yinka Shonibare Makes a Move to the Barnes Foundation,” the Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2014
    Kino, Carol, “Artist Yinka Shonibare Makes a Move to the Barnes Foundation,” The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2014. Accessed online: http://on.wsj.com/1c7tFyt Artist Yinka Shonibare Makes a Move to the Barnes Foundation Once known as an art-world provocateur, the artist has taken on the Enlightenment and the power of knowledge as themes behind a project place for emerging talent and a solo show at Philadelphia's Barnes Foundation—the museum's first contemporary commission in over 80 years By CAROL KINO Jan. 23, 2014 1:04 p.m. ET BRIGHT OUTLOOK | Shonibare in his London studio, with sculptures featuring his signature batik cloth.Photography by James Mollison for WSJ. Magazine ON A GLOOMY WINTER afternoon, the conceptual artist Yinka Shonibare sits in his wheelchair in his cozy East London studio, mulling over some sculptures that arrived unexpectedly from a fabricator that morning—two ten-foot-high library ladders and a model of a coffee-colored young girl garbed in a Victorian frock made from African batik cloth. They are propped against the only empty wall in the art-crammed space, opposite a desk piled with colorful fabric scraps and magazine clippings, where he normally makes collages. Nearby, three female assistants sit quietly at their desks, fielding a stream of emails and requests. From the floor below arises something less typical: the sound of African drums, as a musician warms up for a performance in the emerging artists' project space Shonibare runs downstairs. The ladders and the mannequin are part of a new piece he is creating for "Yinka Shonibare MBE: Magic Ladders," his solo show at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, which opens this January.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Staging Display in the Sculptural Work of Yinka Shonibare MBE Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1nh5w2rt Author Wilder, Courtney Tanner Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Staging Display in the Sculptural Work of Yinka Shonibare MBE A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History by Courtney Tanner Wilder June 2011 Thesis Committee: Dr. Malcolm Baker, Chairperson Dr. Elizabeth Kotz Dr. Jeanette Kohl Copyright by Courtney Tanner Wilder 2011 The Thesis of Courtney Tanner Wilder is approved: _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments My first acknowledgment must be to Dr. Leonard Folgarait, without whose encouragement and assistance I would not have begun this adventure back into the world of academics, and whose example has provided constant inspiration throughout the subsequent journey. Also, I thank Mark Scala for allowing me to tag along at the Frist Center for the Arts, and for mentioning an artist named Yinka Shonibare who I might look into. Completing my degree wouldn't have been possible without the academic support of Dr. Malcolm Baker, Dr. Françoise Forster-Hahn, Dr. Jeanette Kohl, Dr. Liz Kotz, Dr. Susan Laxton, Dr. Patricia Morton, Dr. Kristofer Neville, and the rest of the Department of the History of Art at UC Riverside. Moral support, encouragement and inspiration from my peers and friends proved equally important, and for that I thank especially Melinda Brocka, Cameron Crone, Rebecca Johnson, Elizabeth Osenbaugh, Caroline Owen, Tuija Parikka, Masha Rotfeld, Clint Tatum, Melissa Warak, and Austin Wilkinson.
    [Show full text]
  • Yinka Shonibare MBE, RA Party Boy, 2014
    Yinka Shonibare MBE, RA Party Boy, 2014 Dimensions: 575 x 425mm, unframed Medium: Limited edition digital print on Somerset enhanced 255gsm paper, hand deckled all round, silk- screen seize and hand gild in 24ct gold leaf to balloon Edition of 30 Numbered and signed, accompanied by a letter of authenticity The limited-edition print was specially commissioned for the Foundling Museum’s ten year anniversary and the 2014 exhibition Progress, marking the 250th anniversary of the death of artist and Foundling Hospital patron William Hogarth. The print is a response to plate 3 (‘The Tavern Scene’) of Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress. Each print is unique with different fabrics applied to each edition. Yinka Shonibare MBE was born in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study Fine Art first at Byam Shaw College of Art (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) and then at Goldsmiths College, where he received his MFA, graduating as part of the ‘Young British Artists’ generation. He currently lives and works in the East End of London. Over the past decade, Shonibare has become well known for his exploration of colonialism and post- colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. His work explores these issues, alongside those of race and class, through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and, more recently, film and performance. Using this wide range of media, he examines in particular the construction of identity and tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories.
    [Show full text]
  • Fourth Plinth Schools Awards Teachers Resource
    FOURTH PLINTH SCHOOLS AWARDS TEACHERS RESOURCE SUPPORTED BY 1 u CONTENTS CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 EXPLORE 23 REFERENCES 30 Resource aims 4 Visit to Trafalgar Square 24 Other well known sculptors with 32 or to see local public art work you can see in London Using the resource 4 Fourth Plinth sculptors 1999-2017 33 DISCOVER 11 CONNECT 26 Introducing the Fourth Plinth 12 Drawing or modelling initial 27 RESOURCES 36 Schools Awards ideas for the sculpture R1 – Images and Information about 37 Fourth Plinth sculptures 1999-2015 Putting the awards in context: 12 Presenting the sculpture 29 What is the Fourth Plinth? for the awards R2 – Drawing of Fourth Plinth 38 R3 – Fourth Plinth template 39 R4 – The empty Fourth Plinth 40 2 u CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The Fourth Plinth Programme is UK’s most talked about contemporary sculpture prize. Funded by the Mayor of London and supported by Arts Council England, it invites world class artists to create new works for display in Trafalgar Square. Each year, London schools are invited to enter the Fourth Plinth Schools Awards. The awards give children a chance to get involved with public art and offer new views of London. Fourth Plinth Schools Awards Winner 8-11 Age Group, with Jeremy Deller. © James O Jenkins. 3 u CONTENTS RESOURCE AIMS upon and assess their own work. They This resource can be used by teachers should also give constructive feedback and students to develop a design to other students. drawing, sculpture or model (maquette) for the Fourth Plinth Schools Awards. USING THE RESOURCE It helps students research the ideas, These lesson plans are designed to be methods and approaches artists use flexible.
    [Show full text]
  • Fourth Plinth: Contemporary Monument Contemporary 5 Dec 2012— 20 Jan 2013 Fourth Plinth: Contemporary Monument Contemporary
    5 Dec 2012— 20 Jan 2013 Fourth Plinth: Contemporary Monument 5 Dec 2012— 20 Jan 2013 Fourth Plinth: Contemporary Monument Foreword The Mayor of London's Fourth Plinth has always been a space for experimentation in contemporary art. It is therefore extremely fitting for this exciting exhibition to be opening at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London – an institution with a like-minded vision that continues to champion radical and pioneering art. This innovative and thought-provoking programme has generated worldwide appeal. It has provided both the impetus and a platform for some of London’s most iconic artworks and has brought out the art critic in everyone – even our taxi drivers. Bringing together all twenty-one proposals for the first time, and exhibiting them in close proximity to Trafalgar Square, this exhibition presents an opportunity to see behind the scenes, not only of the Fourth Plinth but, more broadly, of the processes behind commissioning contemporary art. It has been a truly fascinating experience to view all the maquettes side-by-side in one space, to reflect on thirteen years’ worth of work and ideas, and to think of all the changes that have occurred over this period: changes in artistic practice, the city’s government, the growing heat of public debate surrounding national identity and how we are represented through the objects chosen to adorn our public spaces. The triumph of the Fourth Plinth is that it ignites discussion among those who would not usually find themselves considering the finer points of contemporary art. We very much hope this exhibition will continue to stimulate debate and we encourage you to tell us what you think at: www.london.gov.uk/fourthplinth Justine Simons Head of Culture for the Mayor of London Gregor Muir Executive Director, ICA 2 3 5 Dec 2012— 20 Jan 2013 Fourth Plinth: Contemporary Monument One Thing Leads To Another… Michaela Crimmin Trafalgar Square holds interesting tensions.
    [Show full text]
  • Le Programme D'art Public Du Fourth Plinth
    UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL LE PROGRAMME D'ART PUBLIC DU FOURTH PLINTH. UNE BRÈCHE DANS LE DISCOURS COLONIALISTE ET IMPÉRIALISTE DU TRAFALGAR SQUARE MÉMOIRE PRÉSENTÉ COMME EXIGENCE PARTIELLE DE LA MAÎTRISE EN HISTOIRE DE L'ART PAR ORIANE ASSELIN-V AN COPPENOLLE NOVEMBRE 2017 UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL Service des bibliothèques Avertissement La diffusion de ce mémoire se fait dans le respect des droits de son auteur, qui a signé le formulaire Autorisation de reproduire et de diffuser un travail de recherche de cycles supérieurs (SDU-522 - Rév.1 0-2015). Cette autorisation stipule que «conformément à l'article 11 du Règlement no 8 des études de cycles supérieurs, [l 'auteur] concède à l'Université du Québec à Montréal une licence non exclusive d'utilisation et de publication de la totalité ou d'une partie importante de [son] travail de recherche pour des fins pédagogiques et non commerciales. Plus précisément, [l'auteur] autorise l'Université du Québec à Montréal à reproduire, diffuser, prêter, distribuer ou vendre des copies de [son] travail de recherche à des fins non commerciales sur quelque support que ce soit, y compris l'Internet. Cette licence et cette autorisation n'entraînent pas une renonciation de [la] part [de l'auteur] à [ses] droits moraux ni à [ses] droits de propriété intellectuelle. Sauf entente contraire, [l 'auteur] conserve la liberté de diffuser et de commercialiser ou non ce travail dont [il] possède un exemplaire. » REMERCIEMENTS En tout premier lieu, je tiens à remercier spécialement ma directrice Annie Gérin qui m'a accompagnée à travers ce périple, au fil des diverses tangentes qu' a pris ce projet.
    [Show full text]
  • African Spirits of Modernism
    Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: African Spirits of Modernism 4 June–31 July 2021 Gallery 1 and 2 Gallery Hours Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present British-Nigerian artist Yinka Tuesday to Saturday, 11am - 5pm Shonibare CBE RA’s seventh solo exhibition at the gallery, titled ‘African Spirits of Modernism’. Opening on 4 June 2021, the exhibition comprises quilts, Social Media sculptures and a series of African masks that engage with the artist’s own Facebook: /Stephen-Friedman-Gallery identity as a ‘post-colonial hybrid’. The works are accompanied by archival Instagram: @stephenfriedmangallery material that captures the burgeoning interest in African art in Paris in the 1920s. Twitter: @SFGalleryLondon Playfully described by the artist as “Picasso in reverse”, this body of new work Contact Us explores the relationship between African aesthetics and western modernist expression by juxtaposing icons of classical European antiquity with African Sales enquiries: artefacts from Picasso’s collection. As Shonibare explains, “Picasso was [email protected] interested in appropriating from another culture, and I also appropriate from Further details: European ethnic art.” Challenging notions of cultural authenticity, Shonibare [email protected] suggests that another conversation on diaspora within contemporary society Press enquiries: can be had. Carlotta Dennis-Lovaglio at carlotta@scott -andco.com The vibrantly coloured textile quilts employ embroidery and appliqué techniques Communications Manager: and feature Shonibare’s signature batik fabrics that represent flexibility of Alana Pryce Tojcic at identity as much as the implications of trade and colonialism. They are [email protected] combined with a background of diamond-shaped patterns, a nod to the recurring Harlequin motif in Picasso’s work, reflecting both artists’ interest in the acrobatic ‘trickster’.
    [Show full text]
  • Press Release Yinka Shonibare MBE '...And the Wall Fell Away'
    Press Release Yinka Shonibare MBE ‘...and the wall fell away’ Private view: Tuesday 27 September 2016, 6-8pm Frieze week West End private view: Thursday 6 October 2016, 6-8pm Exhibition dates: 28 September – 5 November 2016 Shonibare studio by Wig Worland Opening for Frieze week in October 2016, Yinka Shonibare MBE presents his sixth solo exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery titled ‘...and the wall fell away’. The show marks a pivotal moment in the artist’s practice with the complete absence of the Dutch wax batik textiles for which he is known. Shonibare removes the fabric altogether and uses the batik designs in new forms; mural painting, screen prints on canvas and bronze and classical sculpture. Shonibare uses the patterns as a device to interrupt the canon of classical and renaissance art and Western religious iconography. He indicates his intention to challenge and dismantle the boundaries of Western understanding in the title of the show. By leaving the ‘trace’ of his trademark batik motifs, Shonibare gives a personal insight into the complexities of identity, nationality and colonial history. The exhibition is divided into two parts: Gallery One is focused on ideas of rationality in classical art and Gallery Two, on religious hybridity. On entering Gallery One, we are struck by the absence of sculpture. Instead, an expansive wall painting is framed by the white walls of the gallery. Unlike previous iterations of these impressive installations, here there are no sculptural elements. This work sets the tone for the show as the wax batik pattern is stripped from the fabric and painted directly onto the wall.
    [Show full text]
  • Alice Anderson
    ALICE ANDERSON Born in 1972, London, England Lives and works in London, England SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017 UNIT 9, Alice Anderson : Between Surfaces, London CENTRE POMPIDOU, in vivo, Paris PATINOIRE ROYALE, Summer show, Brussels MAIDSTONE MUSEUM, International Arts Festival, Maidstone MALBUISSONART, Sculptures en plein Air, Malbuisson DRAWING ROOM, Drawing Biennial, London THE ART PAVILION, Force of Nature, London HS PROJECT, Alice Anderson : Everything Is Connected, London FOUNDATION1, Beyond, London ARTSPACE 46, The House of Penelope, London ART GENEVE, Collectionair special exhibition, Geneva 2016 SAATCHI GALLERY, Champagne Life, London NAMUR CULTURAL CENTER, Tabous, Belgium GLASS TANK, Time Capsules, Oxford MINSHENG ART MUSEUM, Traces, Beijing, China PLACE ST GERMAIN DES PRES, Insouciance, public sculptures, Paris EIFFEL HISTORICAL BUILDING, Share & Wires, permanent sculptures, Paris ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, Summer exhibition, London UNION PROJECT, Alice Anderson: post digital, London RYE ART FESTIVAL CREATIVE CENTRE, We work in the dark, Rye 2015 Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Alice Anderson: DATA, Paris Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Touch, Finland LAM museum, Un regard sur la collection d’Agnès b, Lille 2014 British Contemporary Art, Rizzordi Art Foundation, St Petersburg Interchange Junctions, works around Yinka Shonibare, Howick Place, London Light Mood, Public Sculpture Parc, Leopardi Parc, Bergamo Out of Our heads, Shoreditch Town Hall, London Between Reality, European House of Photography, Paris Forward, The Drawing Gallery,
    [Show full text]
  • Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle
    Open Cultural Studies 2019; 3: 362-372 Research Article Heather Shirey* Engaging Black European Spaces and Postcolonial Dialogues through Public Art: Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2019-0031 Received July 31, 2018; accepted December 9, 2018 Abstract: Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, installed on the Fourth Plinth of London’s Trafalgar Square from May 24, 2010, to January 30, 2012, temporarily transformed a space dominated by the 19th-century monumental sculpture of Lord Horatio Nelson, Britain’s most famous naval hero. When installed in Trafalgar Square, Shonibare’s model ship in a bottle, with its sails made of factory-printed textiles associated with West African and African-European identities, contrasted dramatically with the bronze and stone that otherwise demarcate traditional sculpture. Shonibare’s sculpture served to activate public space by way of its references to global identities and African diasporic culture. Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship, this paper argues, inserted a black diasporic perspective into Trafalgar Square, offering a conspicuous challenge to the normative power that defines social and political space in Great Britain. The installation in Trafalgar Square was only temporary, however, and the work was later moved to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where it is on permanent display. This paper provides an investigation of the deeper historical references Shonibare made to the emergence of transnational identities in the 19th century and the continued negotiation of these identities today by considering the installation of Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle in relation to both sites.
    [Show full text]