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Yinka Shonibare, MBE (born 1962) is a British- Nigerian, contemporary artist living in the UK.
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To o lbo x Co nt e nt s [hide]
1 Life and career
Print/expo rt
2 Wo rk
Languages 3 Selected artwo rks/exhibitio ns
Русский 4 Turner Prize no minatio n in 20 0 4
5 References
6 External links

Life and career [edit]

Yinka Shonibare, MBE was born in London in 1962. His family moved to Lagos, Nigeria when he was three. Shonibare contracted
transverse myelitis at the age of seventeen. 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.
Shonibare has become well known for his exploration of colonialism and post- colonialism within the contemporary context of
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globaliz ation. Shonibare’s 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, Shonibare examines in particular the construction
of identity and tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories. Mining Western
art history and literature, he asks what constitutes our collective contemporary identity today. Having described himself as a ‘post-
colonial’ hybrid, Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions.[1]
Shonibare was a Turner priz e nominee in 2004 and was awarded the decoration of Member of the “Most Excellent Order of the British
Empire” or MBE. He was notably commissioned by Okwui Enwez or At Documenta 10 in 2002 to create his most recognised work
‘Gallantry and Criminal Conversation’ that launched him on an international stage. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennial and
internationally at leading museums worldwide. In September 2008, his major mid- career survey commenced at the MCA Sydney and
toured to the Brooklyn Museum, New York in June 2009 and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in
October 2009.
On July 2, 2010, Shonibare was made Honorary Doctor (Fine Artist) of the Royal College of Art, London.

Work [edit]

His first solo exhibition was in 1989 at Byam Shaw Gallery , London. During 2008, he showed at the James Cohan Gallery and was the
subject of a major midcareer survey of work in both Australia and the USA. For the exhbition in 2009 at the Brooklyn Museum, New York ,
a site- specific installation was created for the presentation titled Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play . This installation was on
view in several of the Museum’s period rooms. Another site- specific installation, Party Time—Re-Imagine America: A Centennial
Commission was simultaneously on view at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey , from July 1, 2009, to January 3, 2010, in the
dining room of the museum’s 1885 Ballantine House. Shonibare explores issues of race and class through a range of media that includes
sculpture, painting, photography, and installation art.
A key material in Shonibare's work since 1994 are the brightly coloured 'African' fabrics (Dutch wax- printed cotton) that he buys himself
from Brixton market in London.
"But actually, the fabrics are not really authentically African the way people think," says Shonibare. "They prove to have a crossbred
cultural background quite of their own. And it’s the fallacy of that signification that I like. It’s the way I view culture — it’s an artificial
construct." (2) Today the main exporters of 'African' fabric from Europe are based in Manchester in the UK and Vlisco [2] from Helmond in
the Netherlands.
He has these fabrics made up into Victorian dresses, covering sculptures of alien figures or stretched onto canvases and thickly painted
over.
Sometimes, famous paintings are re- created using headless dummies with the 'Africanised' clothing instead of their original costumes, for
example Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews Without Their Heads (1998) [3], Reverend on Ice (2005) [4] (after The Rev Robert Walker
Skating on Duddingston Loch attributed to Sir Henry Raeburn) and The Swing (after Fragonard) (2001) [5]. An added layer to the Fragonard
piece is that the fabric used is printed with the 'Dior' logo (though it is obviously not real Dior fabric).
Shonibare also takes carefully posed photographs and videos recreating famous British paintings or stories from literature e.g., The
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Rake's Progress by Hogarth or Dorian Grey by Wilde but with himself taking centre stage as an alternative, black British dandy. Examples
of these works are Diary of A Victorian Dandy (1998) [6] and Dorian Gray (2001) [7]
Other works include printed ceramics, and cloth covered shoes, upholstery, walls and bowls.
He was nominated for the Turner Priz e in 2004 for his exhibition 'Double Dutch' at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
Yinka Shonibare is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London [1] , James Cohan Gallery, New York [2] , and Anna Schwartz
Gallery [3]

Selected artworks/exhibitions [edit]

1991 Dysfunctional Family - cuddly looking sculptures of aliens covered in fabric

1994 Double Dutch - small deep squares of stretched fabric painted over, on a shocking pink wall
1997 Sensation A group exhibition drawn from the personal collection of Charles Saatchi - Shonibara had two Victorian style dresses
in the show in the style of Dressing Down
1997 Cha Cha Cha - a pair of 1950s women's shoes, covered in fabric and encased in a perspex cube.
1997 Feather Pink More squares of fabric, painted on both the front and edges, with a white background
1998 Diary of A Victorian Dandy - photographs of Shonibare in group setups reminiscent of A Rake's Progress by Hogarth,
commissioned for the London Underground
1999 Dressing Down exhibition at the Ikon Gallery , Birmingham, UK.[8]
2000 Vacation - Space suited men covered in African fabric, busy up at the ceilings by the chandeliers
2001 Dorian Gray - atmospheric black and white photographs of Shonibare as Oscar Wilde 's Dorian Gray
2001 The Swing (after Fragonard) - a headless lifesiz e recreation of Fragonard's model clothed in African fabric
2001 Henry James and Hendrik C. Andersen - two clothed headless lifesiz e models of the writer James and the sculptor Andersen,
symbolising their friendship and commissioned by The British School at Rome
2001 The Three Graces Three headless lifesiz e models of women of varying proportions, in Victorian dress made from African
fabric
2002 Gallantry and Criminal Conversation - an installation including a suspended coach, wooden chests and 18 headless 18th
century figures engaged in copulation
2003 Maxa Maxa detail - circles of partially painted fabric on a deep blue wall
2004 Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) - his first film, showing the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden through dance
2005 Lady on Unicycle - a headless Victorian lady in knickerbockers joyously caught froz en mid- cycle
2008 Yinka Shonibare: Major Solo Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia [9]
2009 Yinka Shonibare: Major Solo Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA. [10]
2009- 2010 Yinka Shonibare MBE: Major Solo Exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (organiz ed and toured by
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia) [11]
2010 Nelson's Ship in a Bottle - A 1:30 scale model of Nelson's HMS Victory takes over London's Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth

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 Exhibition Space

Turner Prize nomination in 2004 [edit]

Shonibare was shortlisted for the Turner Priz e in 2004 for his Double Dutch exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
and for his solo show at the Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. In 2009
Of the four nominees, he seemed to be the most popular with the general public that year. Out of visitors voting on a BBC website poll ,
64% said that his work was their favourite.

References [edit]

1. ^ Turner Priz e Interview

2. ^ Vlisco Véritable Hollandais
3. ^ Shonibare Images
4. ^ Reverend on Ice
5. ^ Tate Britain: Shonibare
6. ^ Iniva
7. ^ Dorian Gray
8. ^ (1999) Review: Yinka Shonibare at Ikon Gallery , Birmingham, UK. Art Design Café .
9. ^ Yinka Shonibare, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia.
10. ^ Yinka Shonibare, Brooklyn Museum, USA.
11. ^ Yinka Shonibare MBE || National Museum of African Art.

External links [edit]

Yinka Shonibare, MBE (Official studio website)

Yinka Shonibare, MBE at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Yinka Shonibare, MBE at James Cohan Gallery, New York

Categories: 1962 births | Living people | British artists | English artists | Contemporary artists | Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
| British painters | Installation artists | British sculptors | British photographers | Conceptual artists | Textile artists | British people of
Nigerian descent | English people of Nigerian descent | Members of the Order of the British Empire | Nigerian artists | Poliomyelitis

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