Fabricating Identity: The Art of Yinka Shonibare

Moriah Webster
ART 5384: The History of Fiber Art 1875-Present
November 29, 2016
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Fabricating Identity: The Art of Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare (1962- ) is a prominent contemporary British-Nigerian artist whose

vibrant art employs the art historical canon in a new and scintillating way. His distinctly

identifiable paintings, tableaux vivants, photography, and films incorporate colorful Dutch wax

print fabrics as a visual signifier to promulgate the economic, social, and political role textiles

play in the history of post-colonialism and globalism. By addressing his own identity as a black

man in Great Britain, Shonibare negotiates the stereotypes associated with distinctly visual

connotations of identity and subverts them to reflect the more realistic reciprocity of globalism in

the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Yinka Shonibare Early Life

Shonibare was born in London, England to wealthy Nigerian parents in 1962, when his father

was studying law.1 In 1965, Shonibare moved to Lagos, Nigeria with his family at the age of

three.2 Shonibares family kept a house in South London where returned during the summer

months throughout his childhood.3 He reflects on growing up speaking Yoruba at home and

English in school and feeling privileged, rather than disadvantaged.4 He recalls seeing his father

leave home for work in European clothing, but changing into more casual Yoruba clothing in the

privacy of his home.5 He spent the majority of his childhood in Nigeria but returned to England

permanently as a teenager at the age of seventeen. These dual cultural influencesbeing a

1 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
2 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 12.
3 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
4 Ibid.
5 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 25.
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Nigerian-British citizen and living between the two countrieswould be and continue to be an

incredibly significant role in Shonibares artistic creations.6

At the age of 17, and much to his parents disappointment, Shonibare studied art at the

Byam Shaw School of Art (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design), where we

received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Art in 1989. Later, he attended Goldsmiths College,

University of London, and received his MFA in 1991, exhibiting as a part of the Young British

Artists, a group of visual artists who exhibited together in London in the late 1980s/early 1990s.7

It would be the avid collector of the Young British Artists, Charles Saatchi, who would later give

Yinka Shonibare his big break.8

While in university, Shonibare was very strongly influenced by feminism and artists

including Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer. Feminism was important to Yinka

Shonibare; he appreciated the work female artists were doing to bring the artistic

accomplishments of women to the forefront of the history of art.9 Additionally, Shonibare read

the works of Foucault and Derrida, whose approaches to the deconstruction of categories,

signifier and signified, and semiotics would later greatly affect Shonibares artistic

philosophies.10

Unfortunately, in a dramatic turn of events, in his first year at the Byam Shaw School of

Art, Yinka Shonibare collapsed one day after feeling faint.11 He woke weeks later in a hospital,

6 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 12.

7 Ibid.
8 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
9 Yinka Shonibari: Double Dutch (Vienna: NAi Publishers, 2004), 36.
10 Nancy Hines, Yinka Shonibare Redressing History, by Nancy Hynes & John Picton,
African Arts 34, no. 3 (2001), 60.
11 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
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unable to move.12 He had gotten incredibly sick from a viral infection which progressed to his

spinal cord. Shonibare was shortly thereafter diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a neurological

condition in which the spinal cord is inflamed, nerve fibers are damaged, and the spinal cord is

left permanently impaired.13 During his sickness, Shonibare at one point was paralyzed for the

period of an entire month; fortunately, he did not remain permanently paralyzed, although he

spent an entire year in a London hospital and was restricted to a wheel chair for three years.

Miraculously, after three years, Shonibare regained the use of his legs and is now able to walk

short distances. Despite his recovery, he remains impaired on his left side with reduced overall

mobility.14 Shonibares head slants somewhat to the right because of his paralysis and he often

uses an electric wheelchair for mobility although he can walk for brief periods.15

Yinka Shonibare has discussed his disability and its impact on his art in more recent

years. Because of his disability, Yinka says,

I become very good at delegating and have a number of people who facilitate my
priorities. AlsoI wouldnt want to be presumptuousbut I think the experience may
have made me more acutely aware of my mortality than most. Thats why I view pleasure
as so important, and use it in my work as an intellectual basis for questioning a lot of
things I believe deeply.16

From early in his career, disability strongly shaped Shonibares artistic production,

especially his paintings, as he was physically limited to the size of canvases he could feasibly

manoeuver. From a practical perspective, the size of his works were limited because of his

physical restraints. However, Shonibare also used scale to negotiate the motif of the heroic white

malepaintings of staggering sizeby breaking down these enormous paintings; he has said

12 Ibid.
13 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 25.
14 Ibid.
15 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
16 Ibid.
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that rather than actually trying to make some heroic large painting what I do is fragment that

heroism by reducing it to smaller manageable chunks.17 In his mid-fifties, Shonibare now works

as a conceptual artist with much of his labor-intensive production, his tableaux vivants, delegated

to other artists.18

Despite his diagnosis and the challenges accompanying it, Shonibare bravely continued

to pursue his passion for the arts and following his recovery, he returned to the classroom in

1984.19 In 1984, the world was on the precipice of global expansion. The United States was

hosting the summer Olympics, which the Soviet Union boycotted in retaliation of the 1980

Western boycott.20 AIDs virus was identified by a French immunologist and personal computers

were growing in popularity, connecting the world in ways never before achieved.21

In the midst of these global changes, identity became a prominent topic of interest to

many artists when Shonibare was a student at Goldsmiths College.22 While there, his artistic

production, which was very global in theme, was questioned by an instructor for not being

authentic African artthat is to say, the work Shonibare was creating did not appear blatantly

African in theme. At the time, the work Shonibare was interested in was about Perestroika, the

then-current Russian political reform movement within the Russian Communist party and the

17Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 268.
18 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
19 Ibid.
20 Los Angeles 1984 Olympics. Accessed on November 7, 2016.
https://www.olympic.org/los-angeles-1984.
21 Kim Ann Zimmermann, History of Computers: A Brief Timeline Live Science. Last
modified September 8, 2015. Accessed on November 7, 2016.
http://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html.
22 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 25.
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conclusion of the Cold War.23 The art instructor wished to know why Shonibare did not make art

that was African in theme because of his Nigerian background.

Yinka was struck that his instructor assumed that because he was born to Nigerian parents

and spent his adolescence in Lagos that his identity and art would be singularly and

stereotypically Africanone dimensional rather than a culmination of his life experiences.24

Shonibare began to ask questions about assumed identities in exploring his own identity; for

example, why was his work global in theme despite his African ethnicity? He decided he must

address the identity question from an early point in his career, otherwise, [He] would just be

described forever as a black artist who doesnt make work about being black.25

This question and the answer to this question provided an artistic awakening for himhe

began to cultivate the notion of stereotypes and authenticity in his work and its antithesis.26

Shonibare famously responded to the identity question in a speech at Londons School of

Oriental and African Studies by stating, Im a citizen of the world and I read the news, so I

make work about these things.27 It was during his formative years as an art student at

Goldsmiths College that Shonibare really began to explore and adopt the idea of global identity

and world citizenship in his work. He is now well-known for using these stereotypes to question

what is real and what is associated in identity.

In setting out to create a new artistic style, Shonibare decided to try to find a distinctly

African material to use for his works to better explore the theme of African-ness. His primary

23 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
24 Denise N. Rall, Fashion and War in Popular Culture
25 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
26 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 12.
27 Denise N. Rall, Fashion and War in Popular Culture
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desire was to discover what was considered an authentic African material in Great Britain.28

What he discovered, in an African fabric shop in the South London Brixton market, was Dutch

wax prints. These vibrantly colored printed fabrics fascinated him as they were associated with

Africa but influenced by Indonesian batiks and produced in the Netherlands and England.29

Shonibare adopted this fabric as his preferred material because, like him, it was not a product

that was singularly from Africa though it appears distinctly African. Shonibare incorporates this

material in his works of all mediumspainting, sculpture, tableaux, photography, and film. The

material was the idea, he said.30

Early in his artistic production, Shonibare began incorporating Dutch wax fabric into his

paintings. Instead of using linen, he began creating small square paintings on Dutch wax batik

cotton fabric. His famous Double Dutch (Figure 1) takes 50 of these painted canvases and

arranges them in a 10-by-20-foot grid pattern on a monochromatic background, drawing upon

minimalisms use of seriality, repetition, and the grid while breaking down the grandiosity of

scale and gesture associated with its (predominately white male) practitioners.31 Shonibare felt

that there was no need for him to create large, history sized paintings but rather that he could

create many small-scale works to create a large image.32

Following his graduation from Goldsmiths College in 1991, Yinka began working for a

disabilities arts organization to financially support himself. Fortunately, Charles Saatchi, the

extremely wealthy art patron of many Young British Artists bought two of Shonibares pieces, for

what the artist then considered an astronomical sum about 8,000 each (about $13,000 today

28 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 267.
29 Ibid, 267.
30 Deborah Sontag, Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination, New York Times (New
York), June 17, 2009.
31 Ibid.
32 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 13.
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for a grand total of $26,000). His 1995 piece How Does a Girl Like You Get to be a Girl Like

You? (Figure 2) was shown in Charles Saatchis controversial 1997 exhibition Sensations at the

Royal Academy.33 These purchases catapulted Shonibares art and name into world renown. The

works are now valued in the six figures and How Does a Girl Like You Get to be a Girl Like

You? is on exhibit in the Museum of Modern Arts collection.34

In 2005, Yinka Shonibare was awarded a Member Order of the British Empire, an award given

for outstanding achievement or service to the community.35 He accepted this award, somewhat

ironically, given the nature of his artistic production which calls into question the role of the

British Empire in colonizing his native Africa. He has, however, incorporated it into his name as

a way to legitimize his art and to explore further the colonial legacy, class structure, and social

justice issues that remain in the country he calls his home.36

Dutch Wax Fabric

Dutch wax fabric is a material often chosen by Shonibare for its link to authentic African

identity. Though the fabric looks African, in actuality the use of this material is strategic. The

fabric used by Shonibare is produced in the Netherlands and Manchester, England, and

purchased by Yinka at Londons Brixton Market, a street market in south London known for its

wide range of good and goods, especially those from Africa and the Caribbean.37 Ironically and

historically, these visually striking, bold prints are associated with African textiles. In actuality,

33 Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Hannah OLeary, Sothebys. Last modified
July 6, 2016. Accessed on November 7, 2016. http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-
blogs/contemporary/2016/07/yinka-shonibare-in-conversation-with-hannah-o-leary.html.
34 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 13.
35 The honours system, Gov.uk. Last modified August 22, 2016. Accessed on November 7,
2016. https://www.gov.uk/honours/types-of-honours-and-awards.
36 Yinka Shonibare MBE, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Museum
of African Art, accessed on November 7, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/intro.html.
37 Ibid.
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these prints, interchangeably known as African textiles, specialty African prints, and

Manchester textiles were produced in textile factories in Europe for the African market.38 The

African identity associated with the textiles is therefore entirely constructed by the market of

consumptionan African demographic.

According to Ruth Nielsons article on wax printed textiles intended for the African

market, wax prints, also called wax batiks, are a cotton fabric with a design applied with hot

wax or resin on both sides of the cloth.39 The cloth is dipped in dye and then set to dry. Then,

once the fabric has dried, the wax design is melted off the cloth, and when removed, leaves a

design. Additional designs are added through hand blocking or special printing to create

pulsating patterns and designs.40 This practice is native to the Indian subcontinent but was later

adopted by Europeans.

The history of the trade of textiles between Africa and Europe extends into the

precolonial era when textiles were traded for indigenous materials including oil, ivory, gold, and

slaves.41 The Dutch East India companies in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries extended

trade to India introducing fine, light Indian cottons to the European and African markets. From

1720 to 1750, a sophisticated, global textile market was established in Africa. African patrons

preferred Indian cotton to that being produced in Manchester, the center of British textile

production, which was often coarse linen cloth in dull colors.42

To remain competitive in the lucrative African textile market, the textile manufacturers in

Manchester altered their cloth to be more like Indian cotton. New textiles produced were both

38 Ruth Nielsen, The History and Development of Wax Printed Textiles Intended for West
Africa and Zaire, in The Fabrics of Culture: The Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, ed.
Justine M. Corwell and Ronald A. Schwarz (The Hague: Mounton Publishers, 1979).
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid, 469.
42 Ibid.
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lighter and of a finer weave. To incentivize purchasing, textile manufactures began producing

cloth with variedcolor and pattern to cater to the different regions in the West African

countries.43 By the nineteenth century, Dutch wax prints had replaced Indian cottons in

popularity and were the preferred fabric of African consumers.

In the 1950s and 60s when Shonibare was a child, Dutch wax prints were often worn by

both men and women alike as political fashion; images of Nigerian politicians and political party

symbols were popular motifs on Dutch wax fabric and the citizens of new African nations wore

these fabrics as a kind of fashion propaganda.44

Yinka Shonibare incorporates Dutch wax printed cotton in his art to mute what is

signified by the wax print in Africa to amplify the volume of the sign elsewhere, to make the wax

speak louder in museums in Europe.45 The Dutch wax prints are so strongly associated with

their place in Africa as a commercial good, it is often forgotten that they are produced in Europe.

Shonibare uses this stereotype in his art to make others think about the semiotics, or study of

symbols, of Dutch wax print fabrics. While the fabric looks distinctly African, it is a European-

produced product for an African market. By using this specific fabric, Shonibare muddles the

preconceptions of his workviewers automatically assume the work is African when in reality,

the fabric has a combination of African and European influences.46 Shonibare refers to this

shifting relationship between stereotypes and reality as contamination and has often said, this

purity notion is nonsense.47

Tableaux Vivant

43 Ibid.
44 Yinka Shonibari: Double Dutch (Vienna: NAi Publishers, 2004), 20.
45 Ibid.
46 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 12.
47 Ibid.
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The work of Yinka Shonibare is often mesmerizing because of the clever ways in which he

utilizes the art historical cannon as the point of departure for his works. Shonibare modifies

celebrated artworks from the western tradition to have an African theme as a way of subverting

ideologically western culture to illustrate contemporary globalism; Shonibare has said, Looking

back to art history for images and resonancesyou get some sense of both this frivolity and

seriousness.48 Additionally, by combining elements of perceived African culture with European

tradition, Shonibare is able to create a works that are representative of the emergent global

economy with a mlange of a variety of cultural influences. Expanding beyond the realm of

painting, Shonibare famously creates large tableaux vivantsscenes with arrangements of brown

mannequins elaborately costumed in Dutch wax fabric who have lost their heads.

Yinka Shonibare represents the material culture portrayed in western paintings in his

tableaux vivants to subvert the original meanings to create statements on the larger themes of

globalism and identity. Textiles play a significant role in artin prints and portraiture, the

depiction of material culture conveys a great deal of information about society and culture. The

depiction of clothing in portraiture provides invaluable evidence of the tastes and aspirations of

those portrayed within. Clothing in eighteenth and nineteenth century British portraiture

especially points to the complex networks of exchange, both commercial and ideological

between the British and their African colonies. Shonibare manipulates those understood

relationships to apply new and dynamic global themes to the traditional art historical canon. By

creating very tactile, sculptural works which extend into the viewers space, he is better able to

engage with his audience. Ultimately, it is Shonibares use of textiles which engage the tangible

senses of the viewer.49

48 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 268.
49 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel), 10.
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An example of one of these tableau vivant is Shonibares 1998 work, Mr. and Mrs.

Andrews Without Their Heads (Figure 3). This work depicts two headless brown skinned

mannequins, both dressed in fashions of the mid-eighteenth century, sewn out of vibrantly

colored batik (Dutch wax print) fabric. The female figure is seated on an intricately carved

bench, her legs gracefully crossed and her hands delicately in her lap, while her male counterpart

casually leans on the bench behind her, his gun rests limply under his right arm. A loyal canine

companion accompanies the pair, his yellow color also made from Manchester cloth. This three-

dimensional sculpture which rests on a pedestal straightforwardly recalls Thomas

Gainsboroughs (1727-1788) famous Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (Figure 4).50

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) was a remarkably well-known eighteenth-century

painter of landscapes and portraiture. He trained at the Academy at St. Martins Lane, the

precursor to the British Royal Academy, under the tutelage of William Hogarth and Hubert

Gravelot.51 Gainsboroughs portrait, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, portrays Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, an

eighteenth-century British farming couple.

Patrons of eighteenth-century portraiture were acutely aware of the social significance of

clothing and sought to remain fashionable by acquiring the finest materials and fashions in order

to prove their financial surface and cosmopolitanism. Merchants nearly constant supply of

exotic goods from China, India, and colonial Africa insured that the British market was saturated

with the best quality and most modern fabrics including silk, embroidered gauzes, and linen.

Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews makes a clear and direct statement as to the sitters

understanding of the significance of appearing fashionable; Mr. and Mrs. Andrews use this image

50 Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their heads, National Gallery of Canada. Accessed on
November 4, 2016. https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=52528.
51 Michael Rosenthal, The Art of Thomas Gainsborough: "a Little Business for the Eye" (New
Haven, CT: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for the Studies in British Art by Yale
University Press, 1999), 5.
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to demonstrate their understanding of appearing as gentlefolk, despite their economic situation as

farmers.52

Shonibare saw and interpreted this work to be more of a visual inventory, as though Mr.

Andrews was presenting his belongings. In the midst of his expansive acreage, he presents to the

world a demonstration of his wealth. Beside him are his loyal dog, his gun, and his wife. In this

work, Shonibare takes the veneration which Andrews creates surrounding his possessions and

subverts it to create a degree of both reverence and irreverence.53 By dressing the figures in the

cloth of African working class, he removes the figures status as members of the gentry. To further

deflate the work, he also removes their heads as an allusion to the French Revolution and the

beheading of the French landed gentry and aristocracy to subvert the historical icons of power

and deference. 54

Yinka Shonibare does not create works solely based upon British paintings. He also has

done several with French themes like the The Swing (after Fragonard) (Figure 5). This work

recalls French Rococo artist Jean-Honor Fragonards 1767 work, The Swing, (Figure 6) which

depicts an aristocratic young woman in a frothy pink dress swinging in a lush garden; her shoe

flies through the air as she has kicked it off in her frivolity.55 Surrounding the woman are two

men, one who pushes her, and another who is positioned to look up her skirt as she swings. This

deviant characters presence is unknown to the female figure seated on the swing.

52 Michael Rosenthal, The Art of Thomas Gainsborough (New Haven, CT: Published for the
Paul Mellon Centre for the Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1999), 17.
53 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 269.
54 Ibid.
55 Rachel Taylor, The Swing (after Fragonard) Yinka Shonibare MBE, 2001, The Tate. Last
modified September 2003. Accessed November 3, 2016.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shonibare-the-swing-after-fragonard-t07952/text-summary.
 Webster 13

Shonibares sculptural depiction of this work, The Swing (after Fragonard), features a

brown female mannequin on a swing, her shoe midair. In an alteration from the painting,

Shonibare has removed the men from the scene and the viewer is invited to take their positions

behind and below her. The female figure is clothed in an equally as luxurious, eighteenth century

robe la Polonaise made from Dutch wax fabric. She also has lost her head.56 In discussing this

work, Shonibare wished to reference frivolity over profundity but in his removal of the

characters head, he makes an insightful statement about the French aristocratic lifestyle which

ceased to exist as it once did following the French Revolution.57 Shonibare makes the statement

that ultimately, the blissfully ignorant female aristocrat would likely have faced the guillotine in

the destruction and terror of la Rvolution.

The sculptures mentioned above all recall eighteenth century paintings from the

Enlightenment period. The Enlightenment, a period from about 1715 to 1785, was a social and

cultural movement characterized by an embrace of empirical methods of science and

rationality, democracy, and liberalism.58 Shonibare turns these ideas of scientific exploration and

rationality for the improvement of society on their head by suggesting that the Enlightenment

was actually source of irrational aggression. Shonibare believes very strongly that the arrogance

of liberal democracyhas been used as a justification for a number of wars, including the most

recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan which sought to overthrow Saddam Husseins

dictatorship and end the war on terrorism in the Middle East.

Shonibare believes the enlightened western world will force democracy upon [foreign

countries] by the gun.59 This criticism of the Enlightenment and modern political policy is

56 Ibid.
57 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 269.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
 Webster 14

reflected in Shonibares works which, though they appear playful and fun, have undertones of

suggested violence or aggression, an idea which is manifested in the decapitated mannequins.

Shonibare has said Your enlightened intentions, in sum, do not necessarily produce enlightened

results, which demands the question: was the Enlightenment really an escape from the Dark

Ages of tradition or merely a political power play by democratic nations to gain economic and

political power? Shonibare suggests the latter.60

Though most of the works discussed thus far by Yinka Shonibare have been inspired by

the Enlightenment, in actuality, in addition to the use of Dutch wax fabric in his works, Yinka

Shonibare is most known for referencing the Victorian period (the period from approximately

1830 to 1890) in a large portion of his works. Shonibare often draws upon imagery from the

Victorian era because of the intrinsic values of that time: maintenance of a strict moral code and

social code of conduct, sexual restraint, and an emphasis on philanthropy. Moreover, the British

Empire was at its height during the Victorian era as a reflection on the success of the British in

colonizing Africa in the eighteenth century.61 Shonibare also calls upon this period as an allusion

to the British Prime Minister from 1975 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), who

campaigned on the platform of a return to Victorian values.62 Thatcher was likely referencing

the values of maintaining a strict moral and social code of conduct. However, the Victorian era is

marked by a duplicity between good and evil.

The best known example of this dichotomy is the popular 1866 Victorian novella, The

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story about a character, Dr. Jekyll, a prominent, well-

behaved figure in society who, when he takes a potion, becomes Mr. Hyde, a reckless, evil man.

60 Ibid.
61 Ibid, 268.
62 Raphael Samuel, Mrs. Thatchers Return to Victorian Values in Understanding Human
Dignity (Proceedings of the British Academy) ed. Christopher McGrudden (London: British
Academy, 2014), 9.
 Webster 15

The primary argument of this novella is the struggle of mankind between the Victorian

suppression of evil and human natures nefarious behavior. The Victorian Aristocracy, while

maintaining the appearance of good behavior, was driven by pleasure with a penchant for

extravagance, promiscuity, and recklessness.63 Shonibare initially did not want to incorporate

Victorian themes into his work but ultimately he decided

I thought it would be ironic to play with precisely that notion of Victorian values. There
was a way of subverting that idea of the historical authority of the Victorian period by
appropriating it or being complicit with it.64
Shonibare creates brilliant tableaux vivant which incorporate the dual nature of the Victorian era:

the restraint and piety paired with irresponsibility and sex. In his sculptural works, Shonibare

uses Dutch wax print fabric to create elaborate Victorian costumes, which he places on black

mannequins as opposed to white ones. He does this, not to create a revisionist history of the

Victorian era which calls upon an obscure historical character, but rather, to toy with the idea

of making people look twice and re-engage in what they are looking at.65

An early example of a Victorian tableaux vivant by Shonibare is his 1995 work, Undergarments

and Much More (Figure 7). This installation predates Shonibares use of mannequins by

displaying only the bodices of Victorian gowns made out of Dutch wax print fabric without

bodies. According to the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England, where this piece was exhibited,

the corsets suggest a provocative de-robing of social and class constructions.66 The tightly

laced corsets of the Victorian period restricted womens movement and constructed the

fashionable silhouette of the nineteenth century. They also, however, were worn under clothing

and their appearance has intentional sexual undertones. In this way, Undergarments and Much

63 Yinka Shonibari: Double Dutch (Vienna: NAi Publishers, 2004), 82.

64 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 268.
65 Ibid, 273.
66 Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Ikon Gallery, Accessed on November 4, 2016. https://ikon-
gallery.org/event/ikon-icons-yinka-shonibare/.
 Webster 16

More makes a statement about the duality of Victorian values of restraint and release. The Much

More of this work is the added element of Dutch wax print, which makes a statement about the

role of African in the Victorian period. In this work, Shonibare deconstructs or undresses

imperialism; the success of the Victorians was shaped by the colonization of Africa in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.67

In a different take on the tableaux vivant, Shonibare created an installation called The Victorian

Philanthropists Parlor, 1996-7 (Figure 8) in which a large three-sided room was created and

decorated in the style of Victorian dcorall out of African wax printed fabric. The walls are

covered in a bright orange wallpaper with the motif of a black soccer player. The furniture in the

room, a chair, an ottoman, a screen, and a fainting sofa are also covered in the fabrics found at

the open market in London. In this work, Shonibare invites the viewer to enter the space visually,

much in the way viewers engage with costume dramas and period re-creations of the lives of the

rich.68

In this scene, Shonibare mocks the hypocritical Victorian philanthropist who seeks to aid

those who are less fortunate but who does so in a way which is domineering and condescending;

Shonibare says, Philanthropy is more about dominance in the colonial context than it is about

altruism; it is more of a condescending idea where the power relationship is never equal.69 The

visual imagery of Africa in the lavish decoration of the room makes a statement about the power

of race and the role of African in establishing England as the colonial powerhouse that it was in

the nineteenth century. In a sense, Shonibare depicts the Victorian philanthropist as far less

troubled by the welfare of the poor or the colonized and more concerned with his image as a

67 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel 2008), 32.

68 The Victorian Philanthropists Parlor, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,
accessed on November 4, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/parlour.html
69 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 268.
 Webster 17

figure of unselfishness and goodness which, in looking at his luxurious surroundings makes it

clear he has no intentions of living humbly or sincerely. The Victorian philanthropist is conceited

and avaricious.

Another work with Victorian themes, and perhaps the most famous tableaux vivant ever

completed by Shonibare is Scramble for Africa (Figure 9). In this work, Shonibare creates the

scene of men huddled around a table over a map of Africa which they are dividing amongst

themselves, eagerly staking their claims.70 The men are clothed characteristically in

Shonibares signature fabric. This work is intended to recall the Berlin Conference of 1884-5

following Englands expansion into Africa in what is now known as the scramble for Africa.

The Berlin Conference was a gathering of European nations in 1884 to essentially divide the

African continent amongst each other, ignorant of people and geography alike, they made

frontiers simply by drawing straight lines on the map.71 The heedlessness of the men makes a

direct comment on the seemingly blind greed and thoughtlessness of the men responsible for the

colonialization of the African continent. This work is exhibited on a raised platform and is lit

from underneath, giving it a heightened sense of visual drama.72 When discussing this piece,

Shonibare has said, it examines how history repeats itself and how the need in the West for

resources such as oil pre-empts the annexation of different parts of the world.73 This is

exceptionally pertinent to the modern age when countries create unions or wars over natural

resources, especially oil.

70 Scramble for Africa Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on November
4, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/scramble.html.
71 The scramble for Africa The Economist, last modified on December 23, 1999, accessed on
November 7, 2015. http://www.economist.com/node/347120.
72 Scramble for Africa Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on November
4, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/scramble.html.
73 Ibid.
 Webster 18

The strength of these tableaux vivants are that Shonibare creates them with the desire not

only to make a statement about events of the past, but also as a commentary on and warning for

the future. While his works have a sense of humor to them, Shonibares messages behind these

works are very serious. By employing the figures in the past, Shonibare removes pressure from

the current political and social situation. However, there is definitely an undertone of foreboding,

warning, and social discord in these works which speaks to the present uneasiness of current

matters which have a frightening way of recalling the past.

The themes of Victorian values are continued in the photography of Shonibare, however

by placing himself at the center of these works, he creates a greater statement about his identity

as a British-Nigerian man living in a global society.

Fotografie

Yinka Shonibare has expanded his artistic production to include different mediums outside of

painting and tableaux vivants, turning to both photography and film. Inspired by Victorian

society and the Victorian literature of Oscar Wilde, Shonibare has created two large photography

projects in recent years based off of Oscar Wildes Picture of Dorian Gray. In both of these

projects, Shonibare has adopted the role of the Victorian dandy, and places himself at the

center of these works as the primary subject. A third series of Shonibares photography has

themes of Enlightenment rational thought and irrationality.74

Diary of a Victorian Dandy (Figure 10) is series of five photographs of Shonibare

capturing a typical day in the life of this created character, the African Victorian dandy. The

photographs are titled by time and begin at 11:00 in the morning as Shonibare is awakened by

74 Yinka Shonibare MBE, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Museum
of African Art, accessed on November 2, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/intro.html
 Webster 19

four maids and a butler. Next, at 2 oclock in the afternoon he is seen in a business meeting

followed by a pool match at 5:00 PM in the evening, an elaborate dinner party at 7:00PM, and

finally, at 3 oclock in the morning is seen in a scene of total debauchery as the raucous party has

found itself in the bedroom.75

This series of photographs is rather imaginative and inventive as historically, the dandy

would never have been a black man. That said, Shonibare uses Oscar Wilde as his study of the

figure of the dandy and places himself in that role. Oscar Wilde was chosen because he used his

skills as clever and fashionable writer to progress through society. This self-construction is

appealing to Shonibare who like Wilde was somewhat of an outsider brought in because of his

art. Of this characterization, Shonibare has said, Coming from a middle-class background the

dandy aspired to aristocratic standing so as to distinguish himself from both the lower and

middle classes.76

Shonibare was attracted to this notion of portraying himself as the dandy. Like the dandy,

who is caught between social classes, Shonibare often felt torn between two worlds as a Nigerian

man living in England. In Nigeria, Shonibares economic position would certainly place him as a

member of the upper class whereas in England he falls somewhere in between the upper and

middle classes. The image of the dandy, however, is purely constructed and so, it is in this way

that Shonibare is able to remake his own image and thereafter re-create and remake himself.77

This again addresses the theme of identity which ultimately Shonibare views as a self-made

construction.

75 Yinka Shonibari MBE (New York: Prestel, 2008), 192-197.

76 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 272.
77 Ibid.
 Webster 20

This series of photographs has often been compared to the engraved works of William

Hogarth (1697-1764), an eighteenth century artist who created moralizing scenes of modern life

as didactic instructions for proper behavior.78 The most popular of these works was The Rakes

Progress, 1735, (Figure 11) which follows the debauchery and eventual destruction of the main

character. Unlike Hogarth, however, Shonibares scenes do not seek to make a moralizing

statement about proper behavior, and instead celebrates excess and decadence, while inverting

the stereotype of otherness through the figure of the black dandy.79

Secondly in Shonibares photographic repertoire is his series of photographs entitled

Dorian Gray, 2001 (Figure 12). This series depicts the novel it is named after, Oscar Wildes

Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890, a story which follows the beautiful Dorian Gray who, after his

portrait is taken, forfeits his soul in order to remain forever young, while a hidden portrait

captures the effect of his age and increasing moral corruption.80 In 1945 this popular novel

became a black and white film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and it is this film which

inspired Shonibares series.81 Similarly to his Diary of a Victorian Dandy, this work is intended

to create an autobiographical assertion about Yinka Shonibares identity.

Finally, the third series of photographs created by Shonibare is his series The Sleep of

Reason Produces Monsters, 2008, (Figure 13) which recalls Francisco Goyas (1746-1828) The

Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (Figure 14) from series of 80 etchings and aquatints titled

Los Caprichos (The Caprices), 1797-98. In Goyas etching, Reason Produces Monsters, Goya

portrays himself sleeping, his head on his desk. While he sleeps, he dreams of

78 William Hogarth, The National Gallery, accessed on November 7, 2016.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/william-hogarth.
79 Diary of a Victorian Dandy, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on
November 7, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dandy.html
80 Dorian Gray, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on November 7,
2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dorian.html.
81 Ibid.
 Webster 21

owls, bats, asses, and giant cats swirl around him and above his head. The inscription
accompanying the etching reads, The artist dreaming. His only purpose is to banish
harmful, vulgar beliefs and to perpetuate in this work of caprices the solid testimony of
truth.82

In these series, Goya sought to address the corruption of Spanish politics and society in

the eighteenth century. Shonibares version of Goyas engraving is a series of five photographs,

each representative of a continent. In each work, he photographs real people according to the

general arrangement of Goyas worksleeping, head on table, monsters above sleeping figure

however the figures are clothed in Dutch wax printed eighteenth century costume and the skin

color of each sleeping man is not congruent with the continent it represents, a white man for

Africa, an African man for Asia, and so forth.83

Like his tableaux vivants referencing eighteenth century paintings and the Enlightenment,

Shonibare again suggests that liberal democracy has prompted a series of wars and other

atrocities on other continents in the name of liberty. By making the representative figures of each

continent a demographic which is not indigenous to that place, Shonibare suggests that the

violent perpetrated by one country towards another which they do not understand, produces a

sleep of reason out of which comes monstersand the term monsters could be substituted

here with any amount of atrocity.84 Shonibare retains the general premise of Goyas original

works but changes elements in his photography to make the work more relevant to the twenty-

82 Los Caprichos, Glascow University Library Special Collections Department, last modified
in August 2006. Accessed on November 7, 2016.
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/aug2006.html.
83 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,
accessed on November 7, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/monsters.html.
84 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 275.
 Webster 22

first century. In both works, however, the premise remains that humans do not always make the

most rational or Enlightened decisions.85

In Goyas original work, the seated figure was supposed to represent the character

Caliban from William Shakespeares (1564-1616) The Tempest. In this play, Caliban, the slave to

Prospero, is a representative of indigenous cultures occupied and suppressed by European

colonial societies, which are represented by the power of Prospero.86 Caliban as a figure of

colonization likely appealed to Shonibare who plays with imageries of colonizer and colonized

and their relationship throughout his works. Obviously, the use of Dutch wax printed fabric in

these photographs is used to make a kind of dark joke about the role of colonization on the

various continents and the commercialization and global network that arose out of that kind of

enslavement.

Film

Yinka Shonibare began to toy with the idea of creating films in the early 2000s as a way to bring

a painting to life or to create a moving tableau.87 The film productions created by Shonibare,

like his work in other mediums are very colorful and dramatic and incorporate the use of the

batik printed fabric. Shonibares 2004 film, Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) recreates a

nineteenth century Italian play by Giuseppe Verdi, of the same title, with beautiful ornate

costumes made from Dutch wax batik in the late eighteenth-century style. The play Un Ballo in

Maschera tells the story of King Gustavo III who is murdered by his best friend who knows the

85 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,
accessed on November 7, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/monsters.html.
86The Tempest by William Shakespeare Analysis of Major Characters SparkNotes, accessed
on November 7, 2016. http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/canalysis.html.
87 Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,
accessed on November 7, 2015. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/masked.html.
 Webster 23

king to be in love with his wife.88 The play, written in 1792, was inspired by the assassination of

the Swedish King Gustav III at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792.89

In his film, Yinka Shonibare recreates this narrative with vibrant colors, beautiful masks,

and elegant dancing. He prefers film to explore movement which he says is an aesthetic you

cannot get when it is presented as a still image.90 Shonibare was influenced by French film of

the New Wave period of the 1950s and 60s and sites Jean-Luc Goddards films for his

inspiration. He is interested in exploring the ideas of chronicling narratives and creates a circular

narrative in Un Ballo in Maschera which consistently draws the viewer back to filmic moment

and refers to the fact that the film is not really a reality in itself.91

In 2005, he created a film loosely based around the plot line of Swan Lake called Odile

and Odette, a play about princess Odette who is cursed to take the form of a swan by day and a

princess by night. Unfortunately, the sorcerer who cursed Odette uses impersonation to trick

Odettes lover into marrying his daughter, Odile. In traditional renditions of this ballet, one

dancer plays both characters, Odile and Odette. Odile is most often portrayed in black

representative of a certain malign intent and Odette in white as a symbol of her purity or

goodness.

In Odile and Odette, Shonibare places two ballerina dancers, one Caucasian and one

black in front of each other and dance in unison as though through a mirror.92 Both ballerinas

wear vibrantly colored leotards made from Dutch wax fabric. His aim in positioning the women

88 Synopsis: Un Ballo in Maschera, The Metropolitan Opera, accessed on November 7, 2016.

89 Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,
accessed on November 7, 2015. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/masked.html.
90 Anthony Downey, Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony
Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers, 2012), 273.
91 Ibid.
92 Yinka Shonibare MBE, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Museum
of African Art, accessed on November 2, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/intro.html.
 Webster 24

across from each other was to create the allusion that viewers were looking at one person

reflected in a mirror. The juxtaposition of a white female and black female calls into question the

western binary practice of contrasting light and dark as good and evil. Interestingly, this film was

commissioned by Londons Royal Opera and Ballet and the black ballerina had to be brought in

from an outside company as the Royal Opera did not have any black ballerinas in its company.93

Film was obviously the preferred medium for this work as the two ballerinas mirror each other in

their movement, a feat that could not be achieved through painting, sculpture, or photography.

Fazit

Yinka Shonibare has produced a vast body of work that both embraces and ridicules the

theme of identity in the modern, global world. His incorporation of Dutch wax printed fabric

makes his work incredibly identifiable and creates a statement about the modern condition and

preconceptions about visual associations. By using historic themes of Enlightenment and

Victorian England, Shonibare warns the modern viewer of past societal conflicts which parallel

the current political and social situation. His work continues to explore stereotypes of visual

signifiers of identity to reflect the complex systems of exchange, both ideological and economic

in the increasingly global society of the twenty-first century.

Works Cited

Diary of a Victorian Dandy. Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on 7

November 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dandy.html.

Dorian Gray. Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on November 7, 2016.

https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dorian.html.

93 Ibid.
 Webster 25

Downey, Anthony. Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony

Downey in The Textile Reader, ed. Jessica Hemmings (New York: Berg Publishers,

2012), 267.

Hines, Nancy. Yinka Shonibare Redressing History African Arts 34, no. 3 (2001), 60.

The honours system, Gov.uk. Last modified August 22, 2016. Accessed on November 7, 2016.

https://www.gov.uk/honours/types-of-honours-and-awards.

Los Angeles 1984 Olympics. Accessed on November 7, 2016. https://www.olympic.org/los-

angeles-1984.

Los Caprichos, Glascow University Library Special Collections Department, last modified in

August 2006. Accessed on November 7, 2016.

http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/aug2006.html.

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their heads, National Gallery of Canada. Accessed on

November 4, 2016. https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=52528.

Nielsen, Ruth. The History and Development of Wax Printed Textiles Intended for West Africa

and Zaire. In The Fabrics of Culture: The Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment

.edited by Justine M. Corwell and Ronald A. Schwarz. The Hague: Mounton Publishers,

1979.

Rosenthal, Michael. The Art of Thomas Gainsborough: "a Little Business for the Eye." New

Haven, CT: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for the Studies in British Art by Yale

University Press, 1999.

Raphael Samuel, Mrs. Thatchers Return to Victorian Values in Understanding Human

Dignity (Proceedings of the British Academy) edited by Christopher McGrudden (London:

British Academy, 2014).

 Webster 26

Scramble for Africa Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed on November 4,

2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/scramble.html

The scramble for Africa The Economist, last modified on December 23, 1999, accessed on

November 7, 2015. http://www.economist.com/node/347120.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,

accessed on November 7, 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/monsters.html.

Sontag, Deborah. Headless Bodies From a Bottomless Imagination. New York Times (New

York), June 17, 2009.

Synopsis: Un Ballo in Mashera, The Metropolitan Opera, accessed on November 7, 2016.

Rachel Taylor, The Swing (after Fragonard) Yinka Shonibare MBE, 2001 The Tate. Last

modified September 2003. Accessed November 3, 2016.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shonibare-the-swing-after-fragonard-t07952/text-

summary

The Tempest by William Shakespeare Analysis of Major Characters SparkNotes, accessed on

November 7, 2016. http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/canalysis.html.

Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), Smithsonian National Museum of African Art,

accessed on November 7, 2015. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/masked.html.

The Victorian Philanthropists Parlor, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, accessed

on 4 November 2016. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/parlour.html

Yinka Shonibari: Double Dutch. Vienna: NAi Publishers, 2004.

Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Ikon Gallery, Accessed on November 4, 2016. https://ikon-

gallery.org/event/ikon-icons-yinka-shonibare/
 Webster 27

Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Hannah OLeary, Sothebys. Last modified July

6, 2016. http://www.sothebys.com/en/news-video/blogs/all-

blogs/contemporary/2016/07/yinka-shonibare-in-conversation-with-hannah-o-leary.html.

Yinka Shonibari MBE. New York: Prestel, 2008.

Yinka Shonibare MBE, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Museum of

African Art, accessed on November 2, 2016.

...https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/intro.html

Kim Ann Zimmermann, History of Computers: A Brief Timeline Live Science. Last modified

September 8, 2015. Accessed on November 7, 2016. http://www.livescience.com/20718-

computer-history.html.

Figures

Figure 1, Yinka Shonibare, Double Dutch. 1994, Acrylic paint on wall, emulsion, and acrylic on
50 Dutch wax printed cotton canvases. Private Collection.
https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dutch.html.
 Webster 28

Fig. 2, Yinka Shonibare, How Does a Girl Like You Get to be a Girl Like You?. 1995, wax-print
cotton costumes on mannequins. Museum of Modern Art.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/biennalesydney/6479791137

Fig. 3, Yinka Shonibare, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews Without Their Heads. 1998, wax-print cotton
costumes on mannequins dog mannequin, painted metal bench, rifle, 165 x 635 x 254cm.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cmoy/12456181273.

Fig. 4, Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. ca. 1750, oil on canvas, 69.8 x
119.4 cm. National Gallery, London. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6301.
 Webster 29

Fig. 5, Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (after Fragonard). 2001, mannequin, cotton costume, 2
slippers, swing seat, 2 ropes, oak twig and artificial foliage, 3300 x 3500 x 2200 mm. Tate,
London. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shonibare-the-swing-after-fragonard-t07952.

Fig. 6, Jean-Honor Fragonard, The Swing. 1767, oil on canvas, 81 cm x 64.2 cm. Wallace
Collection, London. http://www.artble.com/imgs/2/6/6/933850/the_swing.jpg.

Fig. 7, Yinka Shonibare, Undergarments and Much More. 1995, wax-print cotton costumes.
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. https://ikon-gallery.org/event/ikon-icons-yinka-shonibare/.
 Webster 30

Fig. 8, Yinka Shonibare, The Victorian Philanthropists Parlor. 1996-7, reproduction furniture,
fire screen, carpet, props, stanchions, Dutch wax printed cotton. Collections of Peter Norton and
Eileen Harris Norton, Santa Monica, California.
https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/parlour.html

Fig. 9, Yinka Shonibare, Scramble for Africa. 2003, 14 mannequins, 14 chairs, table, Dutch wax
printed cotton. The Pinnell Collection, Dallas.
https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/scramble.html.

Fig. 10, Yinka Shonibare, Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 3.00 hours. 1998, chromogenic
photograph. Collections of Peter Norton and Eileen Harris Norton, Santa Monica, California.
 Webster 31

https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dandy.html.

Fig. 11. William Hogarth, The Rakes Progress, plate 3 The Tavern Scene. 1735, engraving on
paper, 35.5 x 31 cm. Tate, London. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hogarth-a-rakes-progress-
plate-3-t01790.

Fig. 12. Yinka Shonibare, Dorian Gray. 2001, chromogenic photograph. Collection of Emily
Fisher Landau, New York. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/dorian.html.

Fig. 13. Yinka Shonibare, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. 2008, chromogenic
photographs. Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and James Cohan Gallery, New York.
 Webster 32

https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/shonibare/monsters.html.

Fig. 14. Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. 1799, Etching, aquatint,
drypoint, and burin, 21.2 x 15.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/18.64.43/.