Yinka Shonibare and the Search for Africa

Yinka Shonibare and the Search for Africa by Ellen Brooks

When British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare was told by his teachers he needed to incorporate “Africa” into his art, to relate more to his “African” heritage, he went shopping. In the Brixton markets in his home of London he found a miraculous textile called Dutch wax. Piled among second-hand clothes, and smelling of the neighborhood’s mostly African and Caribbean cuisine, Shonibare decided these textiles were exactly what had been missing from his identity. Dutch wax textiles were developed in the nineteenth century in the Netherlands, in an attempt to challenge the production of batik cloth in Indonesia. The fabrics were actually rejected by the very Indonesian market for which they were intended, leaving the Dutch and British manufacturers to try to sell the textiles in a second colonial outpost, West Africa. The contradictory nature of the textiles has become more and more integral to Shonibare’s art as his career has progressed.[i]

Yinka Shonibare - How to Blow up Two Heads at Once

How to Blow up Two Heads at Once (Ladies & Gentlemen), 2006

Yinka Shonibare - MBE

Yinka Shonibare - Vacancies

Vacation, 2000
Wax-printed cotton textile, fiberglass
On first inspection, Yinka Shonibare's »Vacation« seems an innocuous play on space exploration and its implications for science and human progress. However, Shonibare's astronauts are dressed in space suits of so-called African wax-printed cotton textile, certainly not the attire normally associated with space travel. The astronauts' attire evokes the notion of 'going native', while speaking to the possibilities of a dominant 'Other'. Shonibare's suggestion that one can embody the paradox of alien/Other and colonialist/explorer demonstrates the complexity of power dynamics between groups.

Yinka Sonibare - The Swing

Yinka Sonibare - Gallantry and Criminal, 2002

Shonibare nimmt Bezug auf eine "Grand Tour", eine Landpartie von Adligen im 18. Jahrhundert. Die Kostüme sind aus bedruckten afrikanischen Stoffen geschneidert.

Yinka Shonibare, a British Nigerian artist working in the twenty first century, represents more than just a meeting of two identities; his art more than just Africa meeting the West. Best known for his sculptural installations, Shonibare dresses life-size headless mannequins in elaborate Victorian fashions. The cloth he chooses for these clothes, however, has a trajectory of its own. Dutch wax is a complicated material, with roots in both Europe and Africa and meaning that changes upon its context. Using the Dutch wax to upset the inherent harmony of the art historical importance his works recall, Shonibare plays with how we interpret one another. In the piece 100 Years from 2000 he takes his game to a new level. Exploiting the modernist form of the grid with Dutch wax, Shonibare uses the size and conflicting materials of paint and textile to represent more than just a joke. 100 Years exposes a deeper entanglement: a more painful relationship between Africa and the West that has been masked with both humor and ignorance for over a century.

VLISCO: WAX BLOCK PRINT 3

VIDEO: VLISCO: http://vimeo.com/6969987

VLISCO: WAX BLOCK PRINT 2

Vlisco bedruckt Stoffe im Wachs- und Javadruckverfahren  (die so genannten „VLISCO Real Dutch Wax Prints“). Das Unternehmen versorgt den westafrikanischen Markt, wo die farbenfrohen Textilien vor allem von Frauen getragen werden. Vlisco ist Teil der börsennotierten Gamma Holding und Marktführer in Afrika.
Die Vlisco Group, ein Unternehmen mit einer Geschichte von 164 Jahren, trägt mit verschiedenen Marken zur wirtschaftlichen Tätigkeit in mehreren westafrikanischen Ländern bei. Dabei reicht die Markenpalette von der Luxusmarke Vlisco über die Marke Uniwax, die sich auf das mittlere Segment richtet, bis hin zu den zeitgemäßen Marken GTP und Woodin. Diese Marken haben eine starke Verankerung unter den afrikanischen Konsumenten. Daneben dienen sie immer mehr als wichtige Inspirationsquelle für andere große Luxushäuser.