Yinka Shonibare

Assignment on Art & Race for summer program “Art, Ethics & Social Changes” at University of the Arts London

Cheeky Little Astronomer (2013)

These past couple of weeks have been marked by striking images broadcasted on all media channels: statues have been covered up, spray-painted, toppled, removed, dumped in a river. As questions around the future of statues linked to the imperialist and colonial history of Great Britain take over the public debate, one specific artwork at the Royal Academy of Arts appeared to be all the more relevant.

Built by using the same classical aesthetics as these aforementioned monuments, Cheeky Little Astronomer, by UK-based Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare CBE, is a statue that one can interestingly read simultaneously as a commemoration and a condemnation of Britain’s imperialist past.

Influenced by the cross-cultural heritage of his past and his “hybrid” identity, Yinka Shonibare seeks to create a conversation about cultural identity and cultural exchange - not imposing a specific point of view on the public but rather exploring the complexities of the matter.

Yinka Shonibare shaped his artwork on an interplay between historical European and African visual symbols. All the details composing the art contribute in representing the intricate economic and racial interconnections between the dominant and colonized cultures of Europe and Africa, exposing the fusion of cultural identity and the hidden cultural history of things. The combination of various references - the choice of a statue as an art medium and the presence of Victorian style objects both referring back to Western classics; the use of “batik”, largely recognized as an African symbol, for the clothing of the child; the globe taking the viewer back to something more inclusive and universal - altogether capture the essence of multiculturalism.

Through his work, Yinka Shonibare does not seem to state a clear position around the complex dialogue dealing with the politics of colonialism and post-colonialism but rather explores in a playful way what living in an emphatically global era entails.