Yinka ShonibareHybrid Sculpture (Terpsichore/Beìteì-Guro Mask), 2022
Over the past four decades, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (b. 1962, UK) has become well known for his exploration of colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. Shonibare’s work examines race, class, and the construction of cultural identity through a sharp political commentary on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories.
The artist’s work is held in notable museum collections including Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; Norval Foundation, Cape Town; Tate, London; the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi; Moderna Museet, Stockholm and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Recent survey exhibitions and retrospectives include Yinka Shonibare CBE: Planets in My Head; Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Michigan (2022) and Yinka Shonibare CBE: End of Empire; Museum der Moderne; Salzburg (2021).
In 2022, Shonibare unveiled three major sculptural works in Stockholm, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. In recent years, he has unveiled work from his Wind Sculpture series at Norval Foundation in Cape Town (2019) and Central Park, New York (2018). Shonibare was also nominated for the Turner Prize in 2004, and in 2002, he created one of his most recognised installations, Gallantry and Criminal Conversation for Documenta XI.
