One of the most prolific artists of his generation, Yinka Shonibare CBE explores issues of race and class through the media of painting, sculpture, photography, and film. His work comments on the relationship between Africa and Europe, and the formation of cultural identities within a globalised world. Yinka Shonibare CBE was born in 1962 in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study art first at Central Saint Martins College and then at Goldsmiths, where he received his master’s in fine arts.
He was commissioned by Okwui Enwezor at Documenta in 2002 to create Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, the work that launched him on the international stage. His Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle was displayed in London’s Trafalgar Square. It was the first such commission by a black British artist and was part of a national fundraising campaign organized by the Art Fund and the National Maritime Museum; it is now permanently displayed outside the museum’s new entrance in London. In 2012, the Royal Opera House commissioned his Globe Head Ballerina. The life-sized ballerina encased within a giant snow globe spins slowly as if caught mid-dance.
Shonibare has also exhibited globally at institutions including the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Michigan, the British Museum, London, UK and the Serpentine, London UK. In 2024, the Serpentine presented a solo exhibition of works in their Serpentine South gallery. His work is featured in the Venice Biennale 2024 as part of the Nigerian Pavilion. For the Sharjah Biennale’s 30th anniversary, Shonibare was commissioned to create a series of new works. He recently unveiled a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association in Aire Park, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023.
Shonibare’s works is also in prominent institutions, including the Tate, London UK, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome Italy, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan, and the VandenBroek Foundation, the Netherlands.
Shonibare was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004, the same year he was awarded the decoration of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or MBE, and in 2019 he received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
Literature
/ FABRICA-TION, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK (includes an interview by Hans
Ulrich Obrist)
/ Artwriting, Nation and Cosmopolitanism in Britain: The ‘Englishness’ of English Art Theory since the Eighteenth Century, edited by Mark A. Cheetham, Ashgate, Surrey, UK
/ I Know Something About Love, Yinka Shonibare (text contribution), Parasol Unit, Koenig Books, London, England
/ Looking Up, Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, Monaco
/ Before and After Modernism, Byam Shaw, Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London
/ KulTur i Afrika, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden
/ Pattern ID, Ellen Rudolph, Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, USA
/ Yinka Shonibare, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
/ Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Odile and Odette, published by ACA Gallery of SCAD, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
/ Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Rachel Kent and Robert Hobbs, Prestel and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Australia
/ Jardin d’amour, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, FranceFashion Accidently, edited by Hsiangling Lai and Iris Huang, Contemporary Art Foundation / Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei
/ RADAR: Selections from the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan, Denver Art Museum
/ Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography, Phaidon Press
/ Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre, National Gallery of Canada, Merrell, London
/ Contemporary Commonwealth, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
/ Around the World in Eighty Days, edited by Claire Fitzsimmons, Kit Hammonds, Margot Heller and Jens Hoffman, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and South London Gallery
/ Ahistoric Occasion: Artists Making History, edited by Nato Thompson, published byMassachusets Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusets
/ Acting Out: The Invented Melodrama in Contemporary Photography, essay by Kathleen
/ Edwards, University of Washington Press, Seattle
/ Zürich Development Center, Zürich Insurance Company, Zürich, Switzerland
/ Shades of Black, Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain, Duke University Press, Durham, NC; inIVA, London
/ A Sense of Place, inIVA, London
/ Exploring Art. A Global, Thematic Approach, Thomson Wadsworth, USA
/ Africa Remix, Contemporary Art of a Continent, Hayward Gallery, London
/ Samtidskonst för lävare och andra intresserade, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
/ The Israel Museum Jerusalem, Harry N. Abrams Inc. New York
/ L’art de la friche, essai sur l’art africain contemporain, Flammarion, France
/ Turner Prize, Tate, London
/ Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, MA
/ Fashination, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
/ Selvedge…The Fabric of Your Life; The Architecture Issue, London
/ The Culture Game, University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota, MN
/ Continental Drift, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, FL
/ Double Dutch, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands and Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria
/ Doublures, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Canada
/ Looking Both Ways-Art of the African Diaspora, edited by Laurie Ann Farrell, published by the Museum for African Art, Long Island City, Queens, New York
/ Attitude, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Japan
/ Double Dress, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
/ Yinka Shonibare, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
/ Unpacking Europe, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
/ Yinka Shonibare. Be-Muse, Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, Rome, Italy
/ Enwezor, Okwui, Tricking the Mind: the work of Yinka Shonibare, in Authentic/Eccentric
/ Conceptualism in African Art, 49th Venice Biennale, Italy
/ Yinka Shonibare, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
/ Vantage Point, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
/ Bo01 City of Tomorrow, European Housing Expo, Malmo, Sweden
/ The Short Century, Museum Villa Stuck, München, Germany
/ Camouflage, Centre of Contemporary Art of Southern Africa, Johannesburg
/ Give and Take, Serpentine Gallery, London
/ Bamgboyé, O. A. What is Print?, in Technology and Culture, Witte de With Center For Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2024
Yinka Shonibare CBE, Nigeria Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Suspended States, Serpentine South, London, UK
2022
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Planets in My Head, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
2021
Yinka Shonibare CBE: End of Empire, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria*
2020
Justice for All, The Arts House, Singapore
2019
Cowboy Angels, British Museum, London, UK
Flower Power, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan*
A Tale of Today: Yinka Shonibare CBE, Driehaus Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA*
Trade Winds: Yinka Shonibare CBE, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
Guns Drawn, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
Creatures of the Mappa Mundi, Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, UK
2018
The American Library, Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, North Carolina, USA*
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Fitzrovia Chapel, London, UK
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Busan Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
2017
Party-Time: Re-imagine America, The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
2016
Paradise Beyond, Gemeentemusem Helmond, Helmond, Netherlands
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Rotunda Projects, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
End of Empire, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
Recreating the Pastoral, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland
2015
Wilderness in the Garden, Daegu Art Museum, South Korea*
Pieces de Resistance, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada
2014
MCA Chicago Plaza Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA
The British Library, HOUSE Biennial and Brighton Festival, The Old Reference Library, Brighton Museum, Brighton, UK
Egg Fight, Fondation Blachère, Apt, France
Cannonball Paradise, Herbert Gerisch-Stiftung, Neumünster, Germany
Yinka Shonibare MBE: Magic Ladders, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA*
Yinka Shonibare: Selected Works, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland*
2013
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, UK
FABRIC-ATION, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK; tours to Kunstforeningen GL Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark*
FOCUS: Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Dallas, Texas, USA
2012
Imagined as the Truth, San Diego Art Museum, San Diego, California, USA
2011
The Future is the Past, Alcalá 31 Centros de Arte, Madrid, Spain; tours to Centro de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Grand Canary Islands, Spain
2010
Looking Up, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco*
Yinka Shonibare, MBE: Sculpture, Photography and Film, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Friedrichswerder Church, Berlin, Germany
Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, USA
2009
Party Time: Re-Imagine America – A Centennial Commission by Yinka Shonibare MBE, Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA; tours to the St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, USA
Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA; tours to National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C, USA*
A Flying Machine for every Man, Woman and Child & Other Astonishing Works, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, USA
2008
A Flying Machine for every Man, Woman and Child & Other Astonishing Works, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia*
Odile and Odette, Savannah College of Art and Design, ACA Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, USA*
2007
Scratch the Surface, National Gallery, London, UK
Garden of Love, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France*
2006
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
2005
Yinka Shonibare Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection, Cooper-Hewitt, National
Design Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, New York, New York, USA
2004
Yinka Shonibare, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Double Dutch, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands; tours to Kunsthalle Vienna, Vienna, Austria*
Vasa, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
2003
Double Dress, The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland; tours to Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy*
2002
Britannia Project, Tate Britain, London, UK
Double Dress, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel*
Studio Museum, Harlem, New York, New York, USA *
2001
Christmas Tree Project, Tate Britain, London, UK
Be-muse, Museo Hendrik Christian Anderson, Rome, Italy*
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA*
Camouflage, Centre of Contemporary Art of Southern Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa*
2000
Yinka Shonibare, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Affectionate Men, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
1999
Diary of a Victorian Dandy Project, Castle Museum Nottingham, UK; tours to Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, UK and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
One of the most prolific artists of his generation, Yinka Shonibare CBE explores issues of race and class through the media of painting, sculpture, photography, and film. His work comments on the relationship between Africa and Europe, and the formation of cultural identities within a globalised world. Yinka Shonibare CBE was born in 1962 in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study art first at Central Saint Martins College and then at Goldsmiths, where he received his master’s in fine arts.
He was commissioned by Okwui Enwezor at Documenta in 2002 to create Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, the work that launched him on the international stage. His Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle was displayed in London’s Trafalgar Square. It was the first such commission by a black British artist and was part of a national fundraising campaign organized by the Art Fund and the National Maritime Museum; it is now permanently displayed outside the museum’s new entrance in London. In 2012, the Royal Opera House commissioned his Globe Head Ballerina. The life-sized ballerina encased within a giant snow globe spins slowly as if caught mid-dance.
Shonibare has also exhibited globally at institutions including the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Michigan, the British Museum, London, UK and the Serpentine, London UK. In 2024, the Serpentine presented a solo exhibition of works in their Serpentine South gallery. His work is featured in the Venice Biennale 2024 as part of the Nigerian Pavilion. For the Sharjah Biennale’s 30th anniversary, Shonibare was commissioned to create a series of new works. He recently unveiled a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association in Aire Park, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023.
Shonibare’s works is also in prominent institutions, including the Tate, London UK, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome Italy, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan, and the VandenBroek Foundation, the Netherlands.
Shonibare was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004, the same year he was awarded the decoration of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or MBE, and in 2019 he received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
Literature
/ FABRICA-TION, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK (includes an interview by Hans
Ulrich Obrist)
/ Artwriting, Nation and Cosmopolitanism in Britain: The ‘Englishness’ of English Art Theory since the Eighteenth Century, edited by Mark A. Cheetham, Ashgate, Surrey, UK
/ I Know Something About Love, Yinka Shonibare (text contribution), Parasol Unit, Koenig Books, London, England
/ Looking Up, Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, Monaco
/ Before and After Modernism, Byam Shaw, Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London
/ KulTur i Afrika, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden
/ Pattern ID, Ellen Rudolph, Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, USA
/ Yinka Shonibare, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
/ Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Odile and Odette, published by ACA Gallery of SCAD, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
/ Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Rachel Kent and Robert Hobbs, Prestel and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Australia
/ Jardin d’amour, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, FranceFashion Accidently, edited by Hsiangling Lai and Iris Huang, Contemporary Art Foundation / Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei
/ RADAR: Selections from the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan, Denver Art Museum
/ Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography, Phaidon Press
/ Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre, National Gallery of Canada, Merrell, London
/ Contemporary Commonwealth, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
/ Around the World in Eighty Days, edited by Claire Fitzsimmons, Kit Hammonds, Margot Heller and Jens Hoffman, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and South London Gallery
/ Ahistoric Occasion: Artists Making History, edited by Nato Thompson, published byMassachusets Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusets
/ Acting Out: The Invented Melodrama in Contemporary Photography, essay by Kathleen
/ Edwards, University of Washington Press, Seattle
/ Zürich Development Center, Zürich Insurance Company, Zürich, Switzerland
/ Shades of Black, Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain, Duke University Press, Durham, NC; inIVA, London
/ A Sense of Place, inIVA, London
/ Exploring Art. A Global, Thematic Approach, Thomson Wadsworth, USA
/ Africa Remix, Contemporary Art of a Continent, Hayward Gallery, London
/ Samtidskonst för lävare och andra intresserade, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
/ The Israel Museum Jerusalem, Harry N. Abrams Inc. New York
/ L’art de la friche, essai sur l’art africain contemporain, Flammarion, France
/ Turner Prize, Tate, London
/ Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, MA
/ Fashination, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
/ Selvedge…The Fabric of Your Life; The Architecture Issue, London
/ The Culture Game, University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota, MN
/ Continental Drift, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, FL
/ Double Dutch, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands and Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria
/ Doublures, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Canada
/ Looking Both Ways-Art of the African Diaspora, edited by Laurie Ann Farrell, published by the Museum for African Art, Long Island City, Queens, New York
/ Attitude, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Japan
/ Double Dress, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
/ Yinka Shonibare, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
/ Unpacking Europe, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
/ Yinka Shonibare. Be-Muse, Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, Rome, Italy
/ Enwezor, Okwui, Tricking the Mind: the work of Yinka Shonibare, in Authentic/Eccentric
/ Conceptualism in African Art, 49th Venice Biennale, Italy
/ Yinka Shonibare, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
/ Vantage Point, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
/ Bo01 City of Tomorrow, European Housing Expo, Malmo, Sweden
/ The Short Century, Museum Villa Stuck, München, Germany
/ Camouflage, Centre of Contemporary Art of Southern Africa, Johannesburg
/ Give and Take, Serpentine Gallery, London
/ Bamgboyé, O. A. What is Print?, in Technology and Culture, Witte de With Center For Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2024
Yinka Shonibare CBE, Nigeria Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Suspended States, Serpentine South, London, UK
2022
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Planets in My Head, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
2021
Yinka Shonibare CBE: End of Empire, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria*
2020
Justice for All, The Arts House, Singapore
2019
Cowboy Angels, British Museum, London, UK
Flower Power, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan*
A Tale of Today: Yinka Shonibare CBE, Driehaus Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA*
Trade Winds: Yinka Shonibare CBE, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
Guns Drawn, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
Creatures of the Mappa Mundi, Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, UK
2018
The American Library, Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, North Carolina, USA*
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Fitzrovia Chapel, London, UK
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Busan Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
2017
Party-Time: Re-imagine America, The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
2016
Paradise Beyond, Gemeentemusem Helmond, Helmond, Netherlands
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Rotunda Projects, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
End of Empire, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
Recreating the Pastoral, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland
2015
Wilderness in the Garden, Daegu Art Museum, South Korea*
Pieces de Resistance, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada
2014
MCA Chicago Plaza Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA
The British Library, HOUSE Biennial and Brighton Festival, The Old Reference Library, Brighton Museum, Brighton, UK
Egg Fight, Fondation Blachère, Apt, France
Cannonball Paradise, Herbert Gerisch-Stiftung, Neumünster, Germany
Yinka Shonibare MBE: Magic Ladders, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA*
Yinka Shonibare: Selected Works, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland*
2013
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, UK
FABRIC-ATION, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK; tours to Kunstforeningen GL Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark*
FOCUS: Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Dallas, Texas, USA
2012
Imagined as the Truth, San Diego Art Museum, San Diego, California, USA
2011
The Future is the Past, Alcalá 31 Centros de Arte, Madrid, Spain; tours to Centro de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Grand Canary Islands, Spain
2010
Looking Up, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco*
Yinka Shonibare, MBE: Sculpture, Photography and Film, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Friedrichswerder Church, Berlin, Germany
Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, USA
2009
Party Time: Re-Imagine America – A Centennial Commission by Yinka Shonibare MBE, Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA; tours to the St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, USA
Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA; tours to National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C, USA*
A Flying Machine for every Man, Woman and Child & Other Astonishing Works, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, USA
2008
A Flying Machine for every Man, Woman and Child & Other Astonishing Works, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia*
Odile and Odette, Savannah College of Art and Design, ACA Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, USA*
2007
Scratch the Surface, National Gallery, London, UK
Garden of Love, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France*
2006
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
2005
Yinka Shonibare Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection, Cooper-Hewitt, National
Design Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, New York, New York, USA
2004
Yinka Shonibare, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Double Dutch, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands; tours to Kunsthalle Vienna, Vienna, Austria*
Vasa, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
2003
Double Dress, The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland; tours to Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy*
2002
Britannia Project, Tate Britain, London, UK
Double Dress, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel*
Studio Museum, Harlem, New York, New York, USA *
2001
Christmas Tree Project, Tate Britain, London, UK
Be-muse, Museo Hendrik Christian Anderson, Rome, Italy*
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA*
Camouflage, Centre of Contemporary Art of Southern Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa*
2000
Yinka Shonibare, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Affectionate Men, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
1999
Diary of a Victorian Dandy Project, Castle Museum Nottingham, UK; tours to Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, UK and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
One of the most prolific artists of his generation, Yinka Shonibare CBE explores issues of race and class through the media of painting, sculpture, photography, and film. His work comments on the relationship between Africa and Europe, and the formation of cultural identities within a globalised world. Yinka Shonibare CBE was born in 1962 in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study art first at Central Saint Martins College and then at Goldsmiths, where he received his master’s in fine arts.
He was commissioned by Okwui Enwezor at Documenta in 2002 to create Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, the work that launched him on the international stage. His Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle was displayed in London’s Trafalgar Square. It was the first such commission by a black British artist and was part of a national fundraising campaign organized by the Art Fund and the National Maritime Museum; it is now permanently displayed outside the museum’s new entrance in London. In 2012, the Royal Opera House commissioned his Globe Head Ballerina. The life-sized ballerina encased within a giant snow globe spins slowly as if caught mid-dance.
Shonibare has also exhibited globally at institutions including the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Michigan, the British Museum, London, UK and the Serpentine, London UK. In 2024, the Serpentine presented a solo exhibition of works in their Serpentine South gallery. His work is featured in the Venice Biennale 2024 as part of the Nigerian Pavilion. For the Sharjah Biennale’s 30th anniversary, Shonibare was commissioned to create a series of new works. He recently unveiled a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association in Aire Park, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023.
Shonibare’s works is also in prominent institutions, including the Tate, London UK, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome Italy, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan, and the VandenBroek Foundation, the Netherlands.
Shonibare was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004, the same year he was awarded the decoration of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or MBE, and in 2019 he received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
Literature
/ FABRICA-TION, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK (includes an interview by Hans
Ulrich Obrist)
/ Artwriting, Nation and Cosmopolitanism in Britain: The ‘Englishness’ of English Art Theory since the Eighteenth Century, edited by Mark A. Cheetham, Ashgate, Surrey, UK
/ I Know Something About Love, Yinka Shonibare (text contribution), Parasol Unit, Koenig Books, London, England
/ Looking Up, Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, Monaco
/ Before and After Modernism, Byam Shaw, Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London
/ KulTur i Afrika, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden
/ Pattern ID, Ellen Rudolph, Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, USA
/ Yinka Shonibare, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
/ Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Odile and Odette, published by ACA Gallery of SCAD, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
/ Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Rachel Kent and Robert Hobbs, Prestel and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Australia
/ Jardin d’amour, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, FranceFashion Accidently, edited by Hsiangling Lai and Iris Huang, Contemporary Art Foundation / Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei
/ RADAR: Selections from the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan, Denver Art Museum
/ Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography, Phaidon Press
/ Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre, National Gallery of Canada, Merrell, London
/ Contemporary Commonwealth, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
/ Around the World in Eighty Days, edited by Claire Fitzsimmons, Kit Hammonds, Margot Heller and Jens Hoffman, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and South London Gallery
/ Ahistoric Occasion: Artists Making History, edited by Nato Thompson, published byMassachusets Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusets
/ Acting Out: The Invented Melodrama in Contemporary Photography, essay by Kathleen
/ Edwards, University of Washington Press, Seattle
/ Zürich Development Center, Zürich Insurance Company, Zürich, Switzerland
/ Shades of Black, Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain, Duke University Press, Durham, NC; inIVA, London
/ A Sense of Place, inIVA, London
/ Exploring Art. A Global, Thematic Approach, Thomson Wadsworth, USA
/ Africa Remix, Contemporary Art of a Continent, Hayward Gallery, London
/ Samtidskonst för lävare och andra intresserade, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
/ The Israel Museum Jerusalem, Harry N. Abrams Inc. New York
/ L’art de la friche, essai sur l’art africain contemporain, Flammarion, France
/ Turner Prize, Tate, London
/ Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, MA
/ Fashination, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
/ Selvedge…The Fabric of Your Life; The Architecture Issue, London
/ The Culture Game, University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota, MN
/ Continental Drift, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, FL
/ Double Dutch, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands and Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria
/ Doublures, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Canada
/ Looking Both Ways-Art of the African Diaspora, edited by Laurie Ann Farrell, published by the Museum for African Art, Long Island City, Queens, New York
/ Attitude, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Japan
/ Double Dress, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
/ Yinka Shonibare, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
/ Unpacking Europe, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
/ Yinka Shonibare. Be-Muse, Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, Rome, Italy
/ Enwezor, Okwui, Tricking the Mind: the work of Yinka Shonibare, in Authentic/Eccentric
/ Conceptualism in African Art, 49th Venice Biennale, Italy
/ Yinka Shonibare, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
/ Vantage Point, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
/ Bo01 City of Tomorrow, European Housing Expo, Malmo, Sweden
/ The Short Century, Museum Villa Stuck, München, Germany
/ Camouflage, Centre of Contemporary Art of Southern Africa, Johannesburg
/ Give and Take, Serpentine Gallery, London
/ Bamgboyé, O. A. What is Print?, in Technology and Culture, Witte de With Center For Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2024
Yinka Shonibare CBE, Nigeria Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Suspended States, Serpentine South, London, UK
2022
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Planets in My Head, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
2021
Yinka Shonibare CBE: End of Empire, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria*
2020
Justice for All, The Arts House, Singapore
2019
Cowboy Angels, British Museum, London, UK
Flower Power, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan*
A Tale of Today: Yinka Shonibare CBE, Driehaus Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA*
Trade Winds: Yinka Shonibare CBE, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
Guns Drawn, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
Creatures of the Mappa Mundi, Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, UK
2018
The American Library, Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, North Carolina, USA*
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Fitzrovia Chapel, London, UK
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Busan Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
2017
Party-Time: Re-imagine America, The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
2016
Paradise Beyond, Gemeentemusem Helmond, Helmond, Netherlands
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Rotunda Projects, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
End of Empire, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
Recreating the Pastoral, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland
2015
Wilderness in the Garden, Daegu Art Museum, South Korea*
Pieces de Resistance, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada
2014
MCA Chicago Plaza Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA
The British Library, HOUSE Biennial and Brighton Festival, The Old Reference Library, Brighton Museum, Brighton, UK
Egg Fight, Fondation Blachère, Apt, France
Cannonball Paradise, Herbert Gerisch-Stiftung, Neumünster, Germany
Yinka Shonibare MBE: Magic Ladders, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA*
Yinka Shonibare: Selected Works, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland*
2013
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, UK
FABRIC-ATION, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK; tours to Kunstforeningen GL Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark*
FOCUS: Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Dallas, Texas, USA
2012
Imagined as the Truth, San Diego Art Museum, San Diego, California, USA
2011
The Future is the Past, Alcalá 31 Centros de Arte, Madrid, Spain; tours to Centro de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Grand Canary Islands, Spain
2010
Looking Up, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco*
Yinka Shonibare, MBE: Sculpture, Photography and Film, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Friedrichswerder Church, Berlin, Germany
Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, USA
2009
Party Time: Re-Imagine America – A Centennial Commission by Yinka Shonibare MBE, Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA; tours to the St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, USA
Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA; tours to National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C, USA*
A Flying Machine for every Man, Woman and Child & Other Astonishing Works, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, USA
2008
A Flying Machine for every Man, Woman and Child & Other Astonishing Works, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia*
Odile and Odette, Savannah College of Art and Design, ACA Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, USA*
2007
Scratch the Surface, National Gallery, London, UK
Garden of Love, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France*
2006
Yinka Shonibare MBE, Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
2005
Yinka Shonibare Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection, Cooper-Hewitt, National
Design Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, New York, New York, USA
2004
Yinka Shonibare, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Double Dutch, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands; tours to Kunsthalle Vienna, Vienna, Austria*
Vasa, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
2003
Double Dress, The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland; tours to Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy*
2002
Britannia Project, Tate Britain, London, UK
Double Dress, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel*
Studio Museum, Harlem, New York, New York, USA *
2001
Christmas Tree Project, Tate Britain, London, UK
Be-muse, Museo Hendrik Christian Anderson, Rome, Italy*
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA*
Camouflage, Centre of Contemporary Art of Southern Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa*
2000
Yinka Shonibare, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Affectionate Men, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
1999
Diary of a Victorian Dandy Project, Castle Museum Nottingham, UK; tours to Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, UK and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
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