Decolonised Structures (Queen Victoria), Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (2022-2023) (EMPIRE LINES x The Serpentine Galleries, Venice Biennale)

Artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, and Hans Ulrich Obrist and Tamsin Hong of the Serpentine Galleries, coat London’s historic statues and public monuments with fresh layers of history.

For over 30 years, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA has used Western European art history to explore contemporary culture and national identities. With his iconic use of Dutch wax print fabric - inspired by Indonesian batik designs, mass-produced in the Netherlands (and now China) and sold to British colonies in West Africa - he troubles ideas of ‘authentic’ ‘African prints’. Painting these colourful patterns on his smaller-scale replicas of sculptures of British figures like Winston Churchill, Robert Clive, and Robert Milligan, he engages with contemporary debates raised in Black Lives Matter (#BLM) and the toppling of slave trader Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol.

Suspended States, the artist’s first London solo exhibition in over 20 years, puts these questions of cultural identity and whiteness, within the modern contexts of globalisation, economics, and art markets. Wind Sculptures speak to movements across borders, other works how architectures of power affect refuge, migration, and the legacies of imperialism in wars, conflict, and peace today. With his Library series, we read into Wole Soyinka, Bisi Silva, and the Harlem Renaissance, alongside canonised artists like Diego Velázquez and Pablo Picasso, engaging with modernism and ‘primitivism’.

Hans Ulrich Obrist and Tamsin Hong highlight the connection between the Serpentine’s ecological work, and Yinka’s new woodcuts and drawings which consider the environmental impacts of colonialism. A self-described ‘post-colonial hybrid’, Yinka details his diasporic social practices, like the Guest Project space, G.A.S. Foundation in Nigeria, and collaborations with young artists and researchers like Leo Robinson, Péjú Oshin, and Alayo Akinkubye, rethinking this 'moment' or 'fashion' for Black art.

Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States runs at the Serpentine Galleries in London until 1 September 2024. Yinka is also an Invited Artist, and participant in Nigeria Imaginary, the official Nigerian Pavilion, at the 60th Venice Biennale, which runs until 24 November 2024.

Part of EMPIRE LINES at Venice, a series of episodes leading to Foreigners Everywhere (Stranieri Ovunque), the 60th Venice Biennale or International Art Exhibition in Italy, in April 2024.

For more about Dutch wax fabric and ‘African’ textiles, listen to Lubaina Himid on Lost Threads (2021, 2023) at the Holburne Museum in Bath and British Textile Biennial 2021, and the British Museum’s Dr. Chris Spring on Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx by Araminta de Clermont (2010)⁠.

For more about Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010), listen to historicity London, a podcast series of audio walking tours, exploring how cities got to be the way they are.

On bronze as the ‘media of history’, hear artist Pio Abad on Giolo’s Lament (2023) at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

On the globalisation of ‘African’ masks, hear Tate curator Osei Bonsu in the episode about Ndidi Dike’s A History of A City in a Box (2019).

For more about the Blk Art Group, hear curator Dorothy Price on Claudette Johnson’s And I Have My Own Business In This Skin (1982) at the Courtauld Gallery in London.

Hear curator Folakunle Oshun, and more about Yinka Shonibare’s Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998), in the episode on Lagos Soundscapes by Emeka Ogboh (2023), at the South London Gallery.

Read about Nengi Omuku in this article about Soulscapes at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.

And for another artist practicing in port cities like Venice, hear John Akomfrah of the British Pavilion (2024) on ⁠Arcadia (2023)⁠ at The Box in Plymouth.

WITH: Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, British-Nigerian artist. Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, and Tamsin Hong, Exhibitions Curator, at the Serpentine Galleries in London.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠