joseph scissorhands: Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: Free The Wind, The Spirit, and The Sun

Sunday 29 October 2023

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: Free The Wind, The Spirit, and The Sun

Yinka Shonibare - Feeling Free Like a Bird, 2023

Still on Cork Street and I had to pay a visit to the Stephen Friedman Gallery, who like Alison Jacques, have also relocated here. This a better, more cohesive space than the two galleries Friedman had previously occupied at Old Burlington Street, one street away. The inaugural show here was devoted to the sculptures and textiles of Yinka Shonibare, and the pieces appear to have carried on in much the same vein as those from his previous show (here), taking their cue from European artists and art historical movements, in this case the spirit of the Dada movement, and the artist George Stubbs who inspired the life-size equestrian sculpture, which also brings to mind those formal equestrian monuments of generals on horseback glorifying war along Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. I really enjoyed the textile studies of birds which are a meditation on the natural world and man's defilement of the environment. The effects of textiles caught in the breeze were captured in the large, decoratively patterned Wind Sculpture in Bronze (SG) I. There is currently another version of this series on display in Regent's Park as part of Frieze sculpture which I had seen and posted about recently here. This exhibition also generously showcases a presentation of paintings of artists from the African diaspora who have taken part in Shonibare's residency program at Guest Artists Space Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria.