Yinka Shonibare is making difficult subjects accessible, again
The artist’s colourful exhibition at the Serpentine poses questions that remain stubbornly relevant – from war to immigration and places of refuge.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Yinka Shonibare CBE 2024. Photo: © Jo Underhill. Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE and Serpentine.
One idea is enough, when it is a good one. This seems to be the philosophy of Yinka Shonibare CBE RA. The artist has been splashing Dutch wax print onto anything and everything for the past thirty years. Do you remember the colourful ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square back in 2010? It is now on permanent display in Greenwich. That’s Shonibare’s work.
What do you think of when you see Dutch wax print? It’s often assumed to be a traditional African fabric, but was inspired by colourful Indonesian batik designs, and produced by the Dutch to be sold to British colonies in West Africa. It is a vivid and direct visualisation of the history of colonialism – and the basic building block of most of Shonibare’s works.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Yinka Shonibare CBE 2024. Photo: © Jo Underhill. Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE and Serpentine.
Serpentine gallery’s exhibition of the artist includes two new installations that, in combination, had a profound effect on me. One is called ‘Sanctuary City’, the other ‘The War Library’. Shonibare doesn’t indulge in creative or conceptual naming games: the titles of his works describe them in the most succinct way. ‘Sanctuary City’ is a group of small-scale models of buildings that are, or were at some point, considered sanctuaries. ‘The War Library’ is a library of books whose titles are names of conflicts and peace accords throughout history.
The ideas Shonibare uses are so seemingly simple, the execution always visually pleasing (at least to me), but the messages are profound and disturbing. In my book, that is a special kind of talent – to make accessible what is highly contested and problematic. Taylor Swift is particularly good at this, too. I often wondered what it was that made her so popular. Although there are many answers to that, one is that she creates safe spaces – in a way her entire practice is a form of sanctuary. Many millions of people find safety in being seen and heard through her songs, her performances and her message.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Yinka Shonibare CBE 2024. Photo: © Jo Underhill. Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE and Serpentine.
Canadian philosopher Marshal McLuhan coined a phrase: ‘The medium is the message.’ Both Taylor Swift and Yinka Shonibare are perfect examples of this being true in art. Taylor’s medium is not just songs, but safety itself. Shonibare’s medium is not just Dutch wax, but free thinking itself. The artist waves his colourful fabric to attract our attention to sombre realities past and present.
‘Sanctuary City’ is both dark and light. The dark room is filled with miniature models of various buildings of safety, their exteriors are pitch black, while their interiors are covered in warm-hued Dutch wax fabric. Illuminated from within, each one emanates a steady glow in a grave world. Shonibare is showing us that refuge was necessary in the past, and continues to be necessary today. But refuge from whom, you wonder. And the answer is in the next room, which is bright and open. This is a war room. Or ‘The War Library’, as Shonibare calls it.
Sanctuary City (Chiswick Women’s Refuge), 2024. Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London and New York; James Cohan Gallery, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo: © Stephen White & Co
He has done libraries before. ‘The British Library’ which now belongs to the Tate was all about immigration. The spines of its books carry names of immigrants who have made significant contributions to British society, but also names of those who have opposed immigration. So all sorts of people are featured, from Zadie Smith to Nigel Farage. The work was created in 2014, but is just as, if not more so, relevant in 2024.
He has also made ‘The African Library’ and ‘The American Library’. Those previous ‘Libraries’ impacted me, too – I was curious to find names, to see what those people did or are doing. But ‘The War Library’ startled me.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Yinka Shonibare CBE 2024. Photo: © Jo Underhill. Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE and Serpentine.
We all know what history is: a long line of wars. In this installation at Serpentine, Shonibare sometimes includes the same conflict twice – showing the names given to that war by the opposing sides. The work doesn’t attempt to include all wars that have ever happened, ‘just’ the wars linked to colonisation and imperialism. The shelves are full and the online resource, compiled by a group of ten researchers, is a seemingly endless list.
This work would be good foil to Cornelia Parker’s ‘War Room’ – a tent made of the red paper left after the red poppies (a symbol of remembrance in the UK) have been cut out. That tent was about the First World War and lives lost – many more lives than the poppies. But it was based on a tent in which Henry VIII signed a peace treaty, which was then broken a year later. Parker shows endless lives lost and suggests the endlessness of wars. Shonibare shows us that wars are both omnipresent and forgotten – filed away neatly on shelves.
The War Library, 2024 [detail]. Courtesy Yinka Shonibare CBE and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London and New York; James Cohan Gallery, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo: © Stephen White & Co.
As the letters after his name indicate, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA is an elected Royal Academician and has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
He was nominated for the Turner Prize back in 2004, coordinated the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition in 2021, and his works feature in permanent collections in museums around the world, from London and Stockholm to Washington and New York. He has also developed a social project in Nigeria – building artists’ residences and combining art practice with agriculture and food sustainability initiatives.
We can see that he is an artist deeply troubled by injustices both historical and present. And he wants us, the viewers, to see what he is seeing. But he does it with cheery fabric in hand. His art has been around for more than three decades. Yet, to this day his message remains unchanged and, unfortunately, still pertinent.