Yinka Shonibare with pre-mannequin works from 1995 in Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK.
10 September — 9 November 2014
Five Undergarments and Much More, 1995.
About the exhibition:
Yinka Shonibare’s exhibition at Ikon in 1999 was seminal. We now show Five Under Garments and Much More (1995), an early suspended installation that prefigures the artist’s mannequin works. Each piece mimics the structured corsetry of period noble dress but the dramatically enlarged proportions and exuberant textiles suggest a provocative de-robing of social and class constructions.
Magic Ladders, 2014
Ikon Icons sees the return to Ikon of five key British artists from an exhibition programme that has extended over five decades – including John Salt, Ian Emes, Cornelia Parker, Yinka Shonibare MBE and Julian Opie. A presentation of work by each takes place, consecutively, throughout 2014 in Ikon’s Tower Room.
The series is a major component of Ikon 50, the programme of exhibition and events celebrating Ikon’s 50th anniversary.
Cakeman, 2013.
Shonibare:
Yinka Shonibare MBE was born in 1962 in London, England. After growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, Shonibare studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1984–89) and earned an MA from Goldsmiths College, London University (1991). Known for using batik in costumed dioramas that explore race and colonialism, Yinka Shonibare MBE also employs painting, sculpture, photography, and film in work that disrupts and challenges our notions of cultural identity. Taking on the honorific MBE as part of his name in everyday use, Shonibare plays with the ambiguities and contradictions of his attitude toward the Establishment and its legacies of colonialism and class. In multimedia projects that reveal his passion for art history, literature, and philosophy, Shonibare provides a critical tour of Western civilization and its achievements and failures. At the same time, his sensitive use of his own foibles (vanity, for one) and challenges (physical disability) provide an autobiographical perspective through which to navigate the contradictory emotions and paradoxes of his examination of individual and political power. (Quote from Art21)
British Library, 2014.
Copyright: the artist.