Art, Design & Fashion
Landmark
Yinka Shonibare
born 1962
Dutch wax fabric, and an interrogation of empire
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Nigeria Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
His work in Dutch wax fabric has become one of the most recognisable idioms in contemporary art, and one of the sharpest arguments about colonial history in it.
Yinka Shonibare was born in London, grew up in Lagos, and returned to Britain to study art. At eighteen he contracted transverse myelitis, which left him partly paralysed; he has worked with assistants ever since, which he treats as a fact about how art is made rather than a limitation to be hidden.
His signature material is Dutch wax fabric — the brightly patterned cloth understood everywhere as African, which was in fact based on Indonesian batik, industrially printed in the Netherlands and Manchester, and sold into West Africa. That tangle is the argument. He dresses headless mannequins in perfect Victorian costume tailored from it, and the result is a history of empire, trade and authenticity that needs no wall text.
He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2004. In 2010 Nelson's Ship in a Bottle — a scale model of HMS Victory with sails of Dutch wax cloth — stood on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, a few yards from Nelson's column. He was appointed CBE, and has set up Guest Projects in London and the Guest Artists Space Foundation in Lagos and Ijebu to give other artists somewhere to work.
His signature material is Dutch wax fabric — the brightly patterned cloth understood everywhere as African, which was in fact based on Indonesian batik, industrially printed in the Netherlands and Manchester, and sold into West Africa. That tangle is the argument. He dresses headless mannequins in perfect Victorian costume tailored from it, and the result is a history of empire, trade and authenticity that needs no wall text.
He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2004. In 2010 Nelson's Ship in a Bottle — a scale model of HMS Victory with sails of Dutch wax cloth — stood on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, a few yards from Nelson's column. He was appointed CBE, and has set up Guest Projects in London and the Guest Artists Space Foundation in Lagos and Ijebu to give other artists somewhere to work.
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