Yinka Shonibare is an artist whose work is usually immediately recognisable, with his career-long use of Dutch wax print fabrics and their interplay with colonial imagery. It still shocks, and also delights, to see a Winston Churchill or Queen Victoria statue decorated with the bright yellows and blues, pinks and reds of African costume, the floral and paisley prints taking over the very substance of the person. Usually oversized and imposing, these figures seem cut down to size.
It's as if from now on, every such statue that you see of a person in power, each symbol of authority and subjugation has such fabric and design projected upon it. Shonibare has done that to the imagination. Such figures, the evidence of wealth, just cannot be seen any more without the awareness of the colonised nations who paid such a heavy price for empire. We can no longer go through our cities and the grandest central buildings, the areas of commerce, without an awareness of the legacy of plantations and slavery which funded them. The history has always been there, and is now uncovered and exposed.
Shonibare is a creator, not a destructor. He subverts through beauty, the most powerful of arts. He adds.
The work is deeply researched and based upon knowledge and the retelling of history. The retruthing of history. And yet he maintains the lightest of touches. What he does is in plain sight, and yet his work can be approached, and is approached, in many ways. It is the colours of the Dutch wax prints, it is the history of that batique fabric in Africa, along with all its glorious aesthetic values.
The dark central room of the Serpentine houses a collection of dark architecture model-like buildings, glowing from within with the illumination of his signature fabrics. It's a stunningly beautiful piece, and like a dream come true to wander in there. Again, the cathedrals and buildings of the West are shown with African culture long embedded within the walls and windows.
Not just a shelf of books, but walls, an entire library, It's such a generous presence, gorgeous to the eye. You know there is more order there, underlying meanings, and after a while, you realise that the books are marked for wars and conflicts, and some unnamed for those yet to be. Like all intriguing libraries that can only be looked at and not touched, the mind fills in with possibilities and imagining what treasures may be hidden within the volumes.
This entire show is meticulous and a pleasure to be in. I found it deeply moving and inspiring. There is nothing heavy handed about the message, and that is what gives Yinka Shonibare his power.
Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA
12th April - 1st September 2024
Admission free.
www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/yinka-shonibare-cbe-suspended-states/
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