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Yinka Shonibare CBE RA

Selected Artworks

Steel armature with hand painted fiberglass resin cast
Work: 700  x 254 x 200 cm
Unavailable
6000 hardback books, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, gold foiled names and website
Variable Dimensions
Unavailable
Fibreglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, steel baseplate, bespoke globe, straw, aluminium, nylon, brass, wood, paint and resin.
Work: 122 x 52 x 64 cm
Fibreglass and wood sculpture, hand-painted with Batik pattern, and steel base plate or plinth
Figure: 150 x 56 x 44.5 cm
Costumed figure sculpture, camera and tripod
Work: 134 x 114 x 75 cm
Unavailable
Fibreglass sculpture, hand-painted with Batik pattern, and steel base plate or plinth
Figure: 143.5 x 81 x 53 cm
Fibreglass sculpture, hand-painted with Dutch wax pattern, bespoke hand-coloured globe, gold leaf and steel base plate
Work: 134 x 67.5 x 33.5 cm
Patchwork, appliqué, embroidery and Dutch wax printed cotton textile
Work: 125 x 92 cm

About

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA image

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (b. London, UK, 1962) moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to the UK to study Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art, London and Goldsmiths College, London, where he received his Masters in Fine Art.

In 2023, to mark Sharjah Biennial’s 30th anniversary Shonibare was commissioned to create a series of new works for the exhibition. He also unveiled a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association in Aire Park, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023. In 2022, Shonibare launched Guest Artists Space (G. A. S.) Foundation in Nigeria. The non-profit, which receives strategic oversight from UK-based charity Yinka Shonibare Foundation, delivers residency programmes across sites in Lagos and on a 54-acre working farm in Ijebu.
Shonibare has unveiled a number of sculptural works in recent years, including in Stockholm, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. His monumental Wind Sculptures have been displayed globally including at Norval Foundation in Cape Town (2019) and Central Park, New York (2018). Shonibare’s first public art commission, titled Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, was displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2010 and was acquired by London’s National Maritime Museum.

Recent survey exhibitions and retrospectives include Yinka Shonibare CBE: Planets in My Head (2022) at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Michigan and Yinka Shonibare CBE: End of Empire at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg (2021). Shonibare’s 2008 mid-career survey travelled from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney to the Brooklyn Museum in New York as well as the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

Major awards include the Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award 2021 and Shonibare was honoured as ‘Commander of the Order of the British Empire’ in 2019. 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.

Notable museum collections include 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.

Upcoming:
In Spring 2024, Shonibare will hold a solo exhibition at Serpentine, London. He will also participate in Nigeria’s Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.

Download full CV

Exhibitions

New York Gallery
01 November - 06 January 2024
Cape Town Gallery
15 September - 17 November 2022

Films

Press & News

press

Showing in the fair’s Deutsche Bank lounges, Shonibare’s latest series is informed by his time at the Guest Artists Space Foundation near Lagos

press

Too big for a booth, Unlimited is Art Basel’s platform for substantial projects that transcend the limitations of the classical art fair structure. View Yinka Shonibare CBE RA’s The African Library...