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STUDIO ART
UNIT 1. STUDIO INSPIRATION AND TECHNIQUES
WHO?
YINKA SHONIBARE
HOW?
WHERE?
WHY?
WHAT?
Tate Modern, Permanent Collection London
born 1962, London, England
raised in Lagos, Nigeria
The Swing (after Fragonard)
Installation with unique life-size figure and dutch wax fabric.
330 X 350 X 220 cm
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WHEN?
2001
Yinka Shonibare has explored painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, and, more recently, film and performance throughout his career.
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Like Takashi Murakami, he directs a large team of assistant in order to realise his ideas. Unlike Murakami however he arrived at this method due to physical limitations related to an inflamed spinal chord.
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Because of his disability, Shonibare is physically incapable of carrying out the making of the work himself, and relies upon a team of assistants to bring his artistic vision to life.
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A key material in Shonibare's work since 1994 is the brightly coloured "African" fabric (Dutch wax-printed cotton) that he buys himself from Brixton market in London
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We see this material featured in his sculptural and textile reworking of 18th Century French painter Jean-Honore Fragonard's The Swing.
Like Brooke Andrew, Shonibare identifies with several cultural histories. He is a dual national, carrying both Nigerian and British Citizenship.
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His art explores issues of colonialism by recontextualizing known works of European Art and symbols of Colonial prosperity, and adorning them with fabrics of exploited indigenous cultures.
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With the Swing, Shonibare wanted to recontextualize a painting that to him represented the French aristocratic decadence at its most extreme. The use of African textiles on the headless pleasure seeking subject of work is especially jarring when the history of bloody colonial rule in African countries is taken into account.
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The Swing is anachronistic, or in other words, historically confused, referencing contemporary symbols of luxury such as the patterned Chanel on the surface of the fabric. By using symbols from our times Shonibare reminds us that dominant forces remain alive and well in our Capatilist Materialist world.
Watch this above for details on Yinka's Studio Process
Hear Yinka talk about his life as an artist
RESOURCES
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