Shonibare, Yinka

Yinka Shonibare, (born February 10, 1962, London, England), British artist of Nigerian heritage known for his examination of such ideas as authenticity, identity, colonialism, and power relations in often-ironic drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and installations. A signature element of his work is his use of so-called Dutch wax-printed fabric, produced by means of a batiklike technique. Exported from the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe in the late 19th century, the brightly coloured patterned fabric was meant to imitate Indonesian cloth and was enthusiastically adopted in West Africa, so this inauthentic Indonesian textile produced in Europe became known as “African” cloth.

Shonibare was born to wealthy Nigerian parents living in London. When he was about three years old, his family returned to Nigeria, and he grew up in Lagos (then the capital of Nigeria) while continuing to summer in England. Although his parents were disappointed with his chosen career, he was allowed to return to England to attend art school. Just weeks after his classes began, Shonibare came down with transverse myelitis, a disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. The illness resulted in a long-term physical disability where one side of his body was paralyzed. After being hospitalized for a year, Shonibare entered Byam Shaw School of Art (B.A., 1984–89; now part of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design). He received an M.F.A. degree from Goldsmiths’ College (1991; now Goldsmiths, University of London).

Shonibare’s art was placed on its trajectory by the comments of one of his teachers, who asked him why he didn’t make “authentic African art.” As someone who had spoken Yoruba at home yet watched British and U.S. television, was perfectly fluent in English, and had lived in both England and urban Nigeria, the artist pondered the meaning of authenticity and the greater significance of his multicultural identity. Although Shonibare’s work was included in the 1997 traveling exhibition “Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection” and he was a contemporary of members of the so-called YBAs (Young British Artists), he considered his concerns to be quite different from theirs.

In part because of his experimentation with so many media, Shonibare’s art defies easy categorization. In paintings such as Double Dutch (1994), he created a large work by painting a rectangle on a wall and placing on it a grid of several small stretchers covered with the Dutch wax-printed fabric ubiquitous in his art. He then began using these textiles to create costumes in the Victorian style for mannequins. These brightly clothed mannequins sometimes were headless (Scramble for Africa, 2003) and sometimes had objects such as globes in place of human heads (Planets in My Head, Philosophy, 2011). In such works as Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998; based on the narrative works of British artist William Hogarth), Shonibare created a series of photographs featuring himself as a dandy in a variety of tableaux. He also portrayed the protagonist of an Oscar Wilde novel in the photographic series Dorian Gray (2001). Many of Shonibare’s works made reference to paintings by earlier artists, among them Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Francisco Goya, and Leonardo da Vinci. In the 21st century Shonibare expanded his repertoire of techniques to include films (Un ballo in maschera [2004] and Odile and Odette [2005]).

In 2010 Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle won a commission to occupy Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. This competition evinced his growing interest in public art. In 2013 he began a series of fibreglass works he termed Wind Sculptures. Amorphous in shape and colourfully hand-painted in dazzling designs, the pieces resemble Dutch wax-printed fabric blowing in the breeze. The sculptures were temporarily installed at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2013), West Bretton, England; the Museum of Contemporary Art (2014), Chicago; and Central Park (2018), New York City. One was permanently situated outside the National Museum of African Art (2014), Washington, D.C.

Shonibare continued to create installations—namely, what appear to be reading rooms with tables, chairs, and shelves filled with books wrapped in batik. Some of the book spines feature names of significant figures specific to the installation’s country or continent. The British Library (2014), for example, includes the names of first- and second-generation immigrants to Britain, including Alan Rickman, Zadie Smith, Winston Churchill, and the Spice Girls’ Mel B. The African Library (2020), meanwhile, commemorates such individuals as Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, and Taytu Betul, all of whom fought for their countries’ independence.

In 2004 Shonibare was nominated for the Turner Prize, and in 2005—somewhat ironically, considering his exploration of colonialism and empire—he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE); thereafter he presented himself professionally as “Yinka Shonibare MBE.” He replaced the “MBE” with “CBE” in 2019 when he was elevated to Commander of the Order of the British Empire.