Monday 24 May 2010

Yinka in a Bottle

Black Gold
2006

Reverend on Ice 
2005

      
Nelson's Ship in a Bottle
2010

This is a replica of Lord Nelson's ship Victory set inside a giant bottle, by artist Yinka Shonibare which was unveiled today 24th May, 2010 (eve of Africa Day) at the the Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London. It is a 1/30th replica of Nelson's flagship Victory, on which Lord Nelson died during the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. It has, like the original, 37 sails, with 31 set as on the battle day for a light wind. It carries 80 cannons, on deck and almost invisible below deck, and the materials are traditional oak and hardwood, brass, twine and canvas. The sails look like Shonibare's trademark African cottons, woven in England and printed with African patterns for export, which he buys in Brixton market and has used repeatedly to subvert iconic pieces of western art. They are actually made of traditional sail canvas, hand-sewn, and hand printed in batik designs by the artist.


All hands on deck.
once again blogger's size limitations lemme down,
 hope it's evident those are actual people inside the bottle...that's just how big it is. 

  
Yinka Shonibare with a smaller model of the bottle.
Behind him is Girl on a Flying Machine (2008).

pics and words jacked from The Guardian/Andy Hall/Getty Images

2 comments:

Big Man said...

My wife forced me to watch a documentary on dude when he was doing all those pieces with the white folks in colonial garb and himself plopped down in the middle of the scene. I remember him talking about how massive his ego is, which I found hilarious.

KonWomyn said...

Hey BigMan

LOL. What's the name of the docu? iDig the headless collection - it makes the work much more potent, esp when you see the originals he riffed off of.

In the past crickets have said his work is repetitive and stereotyped - but if an artist is going thru a trend why not let them ride it out? When Andy Warhol went viral with pop art same crickets were silent.

Wonder what they'll say abt this one. So far its been good press reviews.