Anthony Downey

Yinka Shonibare

Rachel Kent

Robert Carleton Hobbs

Shonibare employs a wide range of media????????????????????????sculpture, painting, photography, video, and installation pieces????????????????????????to explore matters of race, class, cultural identity, and history. The artist is best-known for his use of a Dutch-wax fabric, which, though labeled as "African," actually originated in Dutch Indonesia and was introduced to Africa by British manufacturers via Dutch colonizers in the nineteenth century. Incorporating the fabric into Victorian dresses, covering sculptures of alien figures with it or stretching it onto canvases, Shonibare uses the fabric as a metaphor to address issues of origin and authenticity. Published as a companion to Shonibare's first retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, this survey explores all aspects of Shonibare's work, offering a fully comprehensive portrait of his projects. Whether he is lampooning Victorian propriety or commenting on the latent ambiguities of the term "alien," Shonibare makes art that challenges straightforward interpretations. Essays by Rachel Kent and Robert Hobbs, together with a generous selection of color illustrations explore this talented young artist's work.

Yinka Shonibare MBE

Criminal Ornamentation is a Hayward Touring / Arts Council Collection group exhibition curated by Yinka Shonibare MBE.Celebrated British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE is renowned for his eye-popping use of colour and pattern in works that play with ideas of cultural appropriation. Shonibare has long been interested in exploring art historical and postcolonial themes whilst pushing the boundaries of accepted 'good taste'.This publication offers a unique insight into Shonibare's world-view. Provocatively riffing on Adolf Loos's highly influential anti-decoration lecture, Ornament and Crime the artist selects works from the Arts Council Collection and other major collections that surprise us, dazzle us, and make us think. Ranging from sculpture and painting to fashion and design, these works tell a story of objects that refuse to be confined.With an introduction by Shonibare, a contextual essay by writer and curator Michelle Kuo and short texts on Textiles, Craft, Nature and Pattern, this publication offers a bold new perspective on how we look at art.Artists featured in the show include the Boyle Family, Susan Derges, Alexander McQueen, Bridget Riley, and Bedwyr Williams, among others.Published alongside a touring show at Attenborough Arts, Leicester (21 September - 16 December 2018); RAMM, Exeter (19 January - 16 March 2019); Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (5 April - 16 June 2019); Southampton Art Gallery (27 June - 28 September 2019).

Robert M. Hierons

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