Designer of the Month: Yinka Shonibare, MBE

Week 4: film

Yinka Shonibare, MBE's films can be seen as a natural extension of his photography work. Already creating suites of photographs that, when viewed together, told a story, it isn't surprising that Shonibare soon turned to the medium of film.

 Courtesy of Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

Shonibare's first film, Un Ballo in Masquera (2004), uses the story of King Gustav III of Sweden's assassination at a masked ball in 1792, Shonibare's familiar Dutch wax fabrics, dance, and a striking lack of dialogue to explore ideas about gender, power and authority.[1] Film, according to Shonibare, has allowed him to explore movement, something that is impossible to capture with a still image.[2] He explains that, with Un Ballo in Maschera in particular, "I did not want to make a film with a beginning, middle and end; instead, I wanted to explore the reflexivity of the film and how it reflects back on itself...It is a very Modernist approach, I guess, and in Un Ballo in Maschera I use devices such as repetition to draw attention to the filmic nature of what we are seeing."[3] And while the subject of this film draws from a particular obscure historical event, Shonibare was inspired to make it by the current global situation, particularly the war in Iraq.[4] As he explains of this work:

I was thinking about King Gustav III of Sweden, who was fighting many wars on many fronts—with Russia, with Denmark—and spending a lot of money; as a result of this high spending, his population was impoverished, suffering. He was also an actor and a dandy, and he started the art academies in Sweden. He modeled himself on the French court and only spoke French. But he was fiddling while Rome was burning. There was a conspiracy to kill him. He loved masked balls, and he loved the theater, and it was while he was at one of those balls that he was assassinated. So I used him as a metaphor for power and its deconstruction. But there is an opportunity within my film for redemption. Things that happen get undone: the king gets killed, but he gets up again, and at the end of the film he steps backward, out of the scene. And, of course, I also played with gender positions, changing them around. The “power” in my film is a woman, and the assassin is also a woman dressed as a man. [5]

If you want to learn more about Un Ballo in Masquera, as well as watch a video that features clips and Shonibare discussing the film, check out Chapter 4 of this ART:21 video.

 Courtesy of Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

Shonibare's second film to date, Odile and Odette (2005), is taken from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.[6] Rather than using repetition as a filmic device, Shonibare instead using the device of doubling to tell his story.[7] As Shonibare explains of why he chose this story:

I always like to work with iconic things, and Swan Lake is very well known, probably the most popular ballet. It’s also a perfect choice because the basic story concerns a prince who wants to get married, and there’s a good, sweet swan, Odette, and a bad swan, Odile. Usually the two roles are danced by the same ballerina. In all productions Odile is put into black clothes and Odette wears swanlike, nicer things. The roles—one as the ego and one as alter—in my version are more ambiguous: you would not necessarily be able to tell who is the bad one and who is the good one. One role is danced by a black ballerina and the other is danced by a white ballerina, and between them is an empty gold frame; the ballerinas do solos from Swan Lake, but they mirror each other’s movements, creating the illusion that one dancer is a reflection of the other. The way the piece is lit, it’s actually quite convincing as a reflection.[8]

Once again, Shonibare's choice of film as his medium is used as a way to express movement and narrative, as well as to convey emotion, an impossible feat for other, static works.

 

[1] Anthony Downey, "Yinka Shonibare," BOMB Magazine online, http://bombsite.com/issues/93/articles/2777, (accessed October 27, 2010).

[2] Anthony Downey, "Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony Downey," Yinka Shonibare MBE, (New York: Prestel Verlag, 2008), 43.

[3] Ibid., 43-4.

[4] Anthony Downey, "Yinka Shonibare," BOMB Magazine online, http://bombsite.com/issues/93/articles/2777, (accessed October 27, 2010).

[5] Ibid.

[6] Anthony Downey, "Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony Downey," Yinka Shonibare MBE, (New York: Prestel Verlag, 2008), 44.

[7] Ibid., 44. 

[8] Anthony Downey, "Yinka Shonibare," BOMB Magazine online, http://bombsite.com/issues/93/articles/2777, (accessed October 27, 2010).

Seattle pyramid apartment

And as promised, here's the second awesome, vertically-inspired apartment for the day, located in the pyramid at the top of Seattle's Smith Tower.

Can you believe this place? At a whopping 462 feet above the city and boasting panoramic views, this has got to be one of the coolest apartments I've ever seen. You can read more about the lucky family that calls this space home right here.

(All photography by Stuart Isett, via The New York Times)

Amsterdam apartment

I have two incredible apartments to share with you all today, the first of which is housed in this lovely looking warehouse in Amsterdam, which dates back to the 1630s.

The owners of this apartment did an incredible job of making the 400-year-old space livable while still preserving many of the original structural details, and I'm very impressed with the amazing use of the apartment's vertical space and the mixing of Mid-Century Modern and traditional Dutch design.

Up next, an apartment in the sky...

(All photography by Rene Mesman, via dwell)

hive honey set

I love the look of this Hive Honey Set, by Biodidactic Designs. An homage to the complexities of bees and the natural geometry which they employ, this honeycomb-shaped, frosted glass container with its wooden dipper and amber-colored honey all look amazing together. 

2011 calendars: part 2

Time for more calendars, and this time around, we've got photography, typography, painting, printmaking, and two very different examples of an entire year at a glance:

Abby Powell is an Austin-based photographer and blogger, whose work I've admired for quite some time now. Abby captures the most dreamy images with her vintage cameras, and her 2011 calendar features one of these photographs each month.

If you're a lover of graphic design, then Heather Lins' 2011 calendar is for you. She has interpreted each month typographically, with the design printed on a wood veneer card.

Swedish artist Camilla Engman is someone whose work is difficult to explain, but impossible to forget. Her calendar features a nice range of her paintings and illustrations and of course, her beloved dog Morran.

Sometimes, having more than just one month at a time visible is exactly what you need, in which case, Miriam Bereson's yearly planner is the perfect solution.

Of course, if you don't need all that room to write on, but still like the idea of an entire year on one page, then maybe this tea towel wall calendar, by Cicada Studio, is more your style. Its cheery design would brighten up any wall, and I love that it can have a life beyond 2011.

if I had a million dollars

I would buy...{the sweater weather edition}

Built by Wendy's Armed Forces two tone boatneck sweater.

A Crenelle Sweater in caramel and burnt orange, from Hetterson.

A.P.C.'s indigo shawl collar pullover, available at Totokaelo.

The Nichole Sweater, from dace.

And the manitu stripe pullover, from Toast.

Kim Eichler-Messmer quilts

I can't decide if I would rather curl up under one Kim Eichler-Messmer's hand-dyed quilts, or hang it on the wall as a work of art. Either way, their beautiful patterns and the way that the colors look like they're melting into each other are simply stunning.

(Via TeenAngster)

Designer of the Month: Yinka Shonibare, MBE

Week 3: painting and photography

As I discussed last week, colonialism and exploitation are two common themes in Yinka Shonibare, MBE's sculptures, and it is these themes that I'd like to use as a starting point for this week's discussion, beginning with his paintings.

 Courtesy of Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

While Shonibare's Scramble for Africa (2003), was an especially pivotal work in terms of its use of its examination of history, particularly the Victorian expansion into Africa, Shonibare's paintings, Black Gold I and II (2006), expand upon this theme, bringing them into the modern era.[1] As you can see in the above image of Black Gold II, the oil referenced in the title of this work is shown to be behind roundels of Dutch wax fabric, representing just one of the many resources that multi-national corporations exploit Africa for, all while the people suffer and starve. Like most of Shonibare's work, it's a powerful, if not subtle, message.

 Courtesy of Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

Shonibare may be better known for his sculptures than his paintings, but paintings are important to Shonibare's career not only because of the themes he explores in them, but also because of the material itself. As I mentioned last week, Shonibare's disability has played an important role in the evolution of his work. While his sculptures and installations require the help of assistants, Shonibare began creating paintings early in his career because it was a material he could manipulate on his own. This also affected the size of Shonibare's works. As Deborah Sontag explains in a 2009 article about his midcareer survey at the Brooklyn Museum, "...'Double Dutch' (1994), shows one way that Mr. Shonibare adjusted creatively to his physical limitations. He could not handle huge canvases. So in 'Double Dutch' he fragmented a large work into manageably sized pieces — 50 rectangles of African fabric — and arranged them in a 10-by-20-foot grid, incorporating the wall, painted an intense pink, into the artwork."[2]

 Courtesy of Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

Like painting, photography was a medium accessible to Shonibare despite his physical limitations, and his experimentation with it began in earnest with his Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998) suite. Rather than focusing on colonialism and exploitation, this series engages with ideas about stereotype, duality and masquerade through the personae of the Victorian dandy, with Shonibare himself as the literal centerpiece of this elaborately staged series, playing the dual roles of director and lead.[3] Shonibare's  Diary intentionally draws inspiration from the satirical art of 18th-century painter and caricaturist William Hogarth, particularly the main character of Rakewell in Hogarth's The Rake's Progress (1735).[4] As Shonibare explains, "Rakewell spends his father's money extravagantly, gets into debt and ends up in a madhouse. My Diary of a Victorian Dandy is the opposite of that. My dandy has a wild time, has wild orgies, but he gets away with it. He challenges the notion of bourgeois morality."[5] Rachel Kent further elaborates upon this in her article in the monograph Yinka Shonibare, MBE, explaining that, "Contemporary associations of black social mobility are invoked through Shonibare's work. Parallels may also be drawn between the plush attire of Shonibare's dandy and the high style and 'bling' of a new black social elite. The symbolic meanings of clothing and its transformative powers are many; and Shonibare's deep interest in fashion predates his career as an artist."[6]

Courtesy of Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

Shonibare's photographs are often as elaborately staged his sculptures. The Diary of a Victorian Dandy suite was one of Shonibare's first experiments with this art form, but it certainly wasn't his last. The above image is from Shonibare's The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (2008) series, which Shonibare appropriated directly from Francisco Goya's painting of the same name. Unlike Dandy, Shonibare utilized not only historical and artistic references in this series, but incorporated his ubiquitous Dutch wax textiles as well. As Shonibare explains about these works:

I have turned the original statement, reproduced on the desk where a figure sleeps, and put a questions mark after it so it reads in French, 'The sleep of reason produces monsters in America?' The original statement becomes rhetorical and I used French in particular here as it was the French who gave America its Statue of Liberty. There are five images in all, representing five continents. In Africa, it is an image of an old white man, rather than an African, asleep at the desk. In Asia, the figure is a black man. In the most basic terms I am suggesting that irrational aggression, born out of a form of Enlightenment rational reasoning, towards a race that you do not understand produces a sleep of 'reason' out of which comes monsters - and the term 'monsters' could be substituted here with any amount of atrocity. Your enlightened intentions, in sum, do not necessarily produce enlightened results.[7]

[1] Rachel Kent, "Time and Transformation in the Art of Yinka Shonibare MBE," Yinka Shonibare MBE, (New York: Prestel Verlag, 2008), 16.


[2] Deborah Sontag, "Headless Bodies from a Bottomless Imagination," The New York Times online, (accessed October 20, 2010).


[3] Rachel Kent, "Time and Transformation in the Art of Yinka Shonibare MBE," Yinka Shonibare MBE, (New York: Prestel Verlag, 2008), 17.

[4] Ibid., 18. 


[5] Ibid., 18.


[6] Ibid., 18.


[7] Anthony Downey, "Setting the Stage: Yinka Shonibare MBE in Conversation with Anthony Downey," Yinka Shonibare MBE, (New York: Prestel Verlag, 2008), 44-5.

shophouse

I simply can't get over these beautiful objects, made by Lisa Occhipinti, of Shophouse. From flowering sculptures to book mobiles, these stunning works make some of the best use of discarded books that I've ever seen.

1010 project

Personally, I'm not much of a photographer. I rarely carry a camera around, and when I do, it's even rarer that I make use of it. Maybe that's why I love blog posts that feature pictures from people's daily lives, and why I love house tours so much: it's the chance to sneak a peek into someone else's world. So when I came across 1010 project participants on not just one, but multiple blogs that I follow, I knew that it was going to be something I would love and want to share with all of you. Boy was I right...

Anabela Carneiro /// Toronto, Canada via Algarve, Portugal

 Ebony Bizys /// Tokyo, Japan

Brian W. Ferry /// London, United Kingdom

Hilda Grahnat /// Malmo, Sweden via Berlin, Germany

 Jacinta Moore /// Melbourne, Australia

Kate Miss /// New York City, United States

Kris Atomic /// Brighton, United Kingdom

Michelle Gow /// Stellenbosch, South Africa

Victoria Hannan /// London, United Kingdom

Pia Jane Bijkerk /// Amsterdam, Netherlands

As the site explains:

10 photographers. 10 photos each. All taken on 10/10/10.

A single day represented in 100 photographs.

No special occasion, no big event, just the essence of daily life captured through ten lenses.

The 1010 project was devised as an antidote to everything in modern life always having to be bigger, better, louder and brighter than what’s been before.

It’s an opportunity to slow down and appreciate the simple, everyday things that make life beautiful.

Isn't that a lovely sentiment? You can check out all 10 of each photographer's images at the 1010 project.