Yinka Shonibare, Modernist Inspirations, 2022

In his multimedia practice, the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare deals with (post)colonialism in the context of globalisation. He explores concepts of class and race and the construction of cultural identity, focusing on interrelations between Africa and Europe in particular. Shonibare produced a giclée print entitled “Modernist Inspirations,” referencing his current interest in the influence of African artefacts on Modernism around the 1920s and, more specifically, his own “Modern Magic VII” (2022), a work recently shown in his solo exhibition “Restitution of the Mind and Soul” at Goodman Gallery in Cape Town. The colourful forms on handmade paper and the sculptural application techniques allude to Dutch wax prints, the distinctively patterned cotton fabrics first produced in the Netherlands but often associated with West Africa. The central figure in “Modernist Inspirations” has been given a screenprint glaze; its shimmering quality enters into a dialogue with the work’s other forms and surfaces. The glossy section of the piece also lends structure to the coarse fibres of the paper. The edition’s preliminary drawing was part of Shonibare’s broader research into how Western modernist artists appropriated forms from African artefacts. The objects represented here cite items that once formed part of the collections of Pablo Picasso and Tristan Tzara. In this way, “Modernist Inspirations” is an indirect quotation of both those artists’ work, whose concise formal language has been repeatedly reinterpreted in Shonibare’s practice.

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Yinka Shonibare