The Yinka Shonibare Exhibition at the Stephen Friedman Gallery 16|10|09

By Del Hossain 16th October 2009

London is such a fantastic city even in these 'interesting times' London uses the moment to thrive in art that prescribes satire as an antidote to the financial forces that impact our lives.  The opening of the Yinka Shonibare exhibition addresses all of these issues head on in what can aptly be described as the Car Crash.
Yesterday evening saw the opening of the Willy Loman: The Rise and Fall exhibition at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in Mayfair. The artist Yinka Shonibare, calculatedly spent most of the evening signing copies of the days FT, as what must be the final piece of his narrative for the exhibition. This is the not so subtle slant on the artist’s perception of the state and uselessness of the City.
The exhibits surround a central piece which is an old fashioned esque car, broken and dishevelled which 'confronts viewers head on,' but in reality seemed secondary to the vast canvas photographs that adorn the walls of the first hall.
Shonibare's work on the other hand was full of uninhibited expressionism particularly in the content of these large canvases, where scenes of carefully photographed naked bodies showed an array of people of different shapes, sizes, and colours gloriously posturing in full bare credentials the beauty of what the Gods have bestowed upon them. Was the FT posing as a contrasting metaphor for the physique et natural, who knows but it worked. Many of the models were in the room proud to have been part of such a liberating expose. As we spoke to one lady and told her how glorious she looked she proudly told us of her life and what it had meant for her to feel liberated in such a way. Art certainly changed this ladies life, or at least her perception of herself, which is glorious in itself.
In the other room lay an interesting trilogy of two foot high figurines dandily dressed in Dickensian top an tails hands cupped, one figurine sported a beautiful plumage of wings. All three standing on wooden tables carefully scribed with their words from better times in contrast to their current disposition.  The cloths of these fine suits are that of African patterns, akin to the fabric used in African kaftans which celebrates the cross cultural diversity of this exhibition. Around the room were a series of montages, which were perhaps the less designed of all the pieces as the canvases demonstrates Yinka's thinking. He has engaged with the news around him and responded in the only way he knows how to which is to montage, sketch and bring together different ideas though strings in one canvass. Visually this is the least engaging of the pieces but intellectually the most enlightening.
All in all a delightful exhibition, and one judging by the overall interest of the guest list a success to the visiting public.