ART-PRESENTATION: Yinka Shonibare-Wind Sculpture (SG) I
Yinka Shonibare MBE has described himself as a post-colonial hybrid, and his work in painting, sculpture, photography, film, and performance utilizes unexpected combinations of pattern and form to examine race, class, migration, and identity in a globalized world. In 2013, Shonibare first started working with fiberglass in a large-scale format beginning with the first generation of “Wind Sculpture I-VII”.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Public Art Fund Archive
Yinka Shonibare’s transition to a second generation of “Wind Sculpture” series includes a design of increased size and complexity, featuring multiple twists and deeper folds in the structure. “Wind Sculpture (SG) I” is Yinka Shonibare’s first outdoor sculpture in New York has been commissioned by the Public Art Fund for Doris C. Freedman Plaza at the southeast corner of Central Park. This is the first work in a second generation of his “Wind Sculpture” series and continues his ongoing examination of the construction of cultural identity through the lens of colonialism. Created from fiberglass and covered with an intricate pattern, the 7-meter-tall sculpture rises above the plaza, reminiscent of the untethered sail of a ship billowing in the breeze. The sculpture is hand-painted in turquoise, red, and orange, colors that the artist associates with his childhood on the beaches of Lagos and looks like the colorful Dutch wax batik prints which Shonibare has called the “Perfect metaphor for multilayered identities”. The form of “Wind Sculpture (SG) I” suggests the movement of wind and natural elements rendered three-dimensionally through fabric, but also the sail of a ship, which for Centuries was the only means of traversing oceans to exchange culture and ideas. The patterns on the surface are borrowed from vibrant batik textiles, which Shonibare has utilized in many forms and mediums and are often associated with European colonization of West Africa. However, these fabrics have a complicated history and came to the African continent by way of Indonesia through Dutch colonization in the 1800s. Today, these fabrics are still manufactured in the Netherlands, and sold and worn throughout West Africa. With “Wind Sculpture (SG) I” Shonibare uses fabric as an entry point to rethink history and meaning and the relationship between Europe and Africa, it presents a story of shifting design and culture that also speaks to the confluence of many identities in public spaces.
Info: Curator Nicholas Baume, Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, East Side Perimeter Wall at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, , Duration: 7/3-14/10/18, www.publicartfund.org
