Rockbund Art Museum

Born in London (United Kingdom) in 1962. Lives and works in London (United Kingdom).

Yinka Shonibare manipulates the iconography of 18th-century English art in order to re-write history from a post-colonial standpoint. Born in London but raised in Nigeria, Shonibare invests corporeal presence with a post-national and political value. His works deal with his Anglo-Nigerian nationality, but without adopting a compliant attitude in terms of the emancipation and integration of immigrants. Seductive and often colorful, Shonibare's pieces, through elements of African folklore and craft, exhibit an ironic display of inequality, race and colonial parody, and in so doing unmask contemporary stereotypes. His installations, in which Western clothes and spaces are created using folk African fabrics, manifest the complexities between diverse cultures and encourage the viewer to question given versions of history.