Yinka Shonibare

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UK art types: tell me about Yinka Shonibare. I saw "Diary of a Victorian Dandy" somewhere last year and thought it brilliant, not only a big perfect pointed concept but also beautifully crafted and dressed, wonderful to look at.

I've just seen a photo of "The Swing (after Fragonard)" online and am even more impressed. I do not follow art properly, though, so I am impressed in pretty much a vacuum.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 30 August 2002 19:49 (twenty-three years ago)

(Have unanswered questions stopped popping up on the new answers board in bold? I sort of liked that.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 30 August 2002 19:51 (twenty-three years ago)

i asked this question on mitchblog the day before my exam in which i had to write on shonibare. nobody answered. so there better not be any more answers here or ELSE!

― mitch lastnamewithheld, Friday, 30 August 2002 21:52 (twenty-three years ago)

oh okay you can answer it. (and maybe my own opinion to follow when i'm thinking coherently.)

― mitch lastnamewithheld, Friday, 30 August 2002 23:13 (twenty-three years ago)

right, great, the one artist I know anything about is the one where no one knows who they are.

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 31 August 2002 01:39 (twenty-three years ago)

it's like when someone goes on and on about some great band whose album they just got, and you have no idea who it is, and then eventually you realize it's just some local bar band that they loved and bought their cd at the merchandise table but didn't realize they weren't actually famous or anything

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 31 August 2002 01:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the fact that you have no idea what he's going to do next - astronauts in strange fabrics, photographic reruns of Hogarth, paintings, old-looking clothes. A lively and imaginative artist who hasn't done anything I've absolutely loved, but I do like him. Though anyone referring back to Fragonard, an artist I loathe, loses points. (The Swing takes on a different meaning if you realise that this was before panties were worn, particularly in polite society!)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 31 August 2002 09:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Yinka is fab. Reappropriates Nigerian folk items (fabric, etc - my friend Esther has, from Yinka, three vibrators with Nigerian batik cloth coverlets, to give some example). Showed at Documenta this year, African show at Venice last year. I'm afraid to say I know him better socially than I do his work; I think he also suffered from some polio-like disease as a child and is very frail and occasionally needs a wheelchair to assist in flirtin' with the laydeez, which he does a lOT.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 3 September 2002 06:51 (twenty-three years ago)

interestingly enough the nigerian folk items, well batik anyway = originally from indonesia. when colonized by the dutch, the technique was taken back to holland where it was manufactured and unsuccessfully sold back to the indonesians - the trade collapsed, but was then taken up by them british foax and sold primarily to the west african colonies, hence the perfect material for shonibare's dialogues abt diaspora, displacement, identity etc.

and yeah, he contracted a viral infection at age 19 which had him in a wheelchair for 3 months, and left him with impaired mobility espin his left side. when a friend of mine saw him at a talk, he thought he was leaning to the side as a kind of confident, suave gesture so i guess he makes it work to his advantage re: 'the laydeez'

and i still haven't decided how i feel abt his work. at the v least, i'll agree that the execution is pretty much impeccable.

― mitch lastnamewithheld, Tuesday, 3 September 2002 09:11 (twenty-three years ago)

wow i so do not know this man. i want to know more. i love the swing, that threesome voyuer look at my cunt thing is hot.

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 6 September 2002 05:54 (twenty-three years ago)

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