Yinka Shonibare MBE: El Futuro Del Pasado

Solo show at Sala Alcalá 31. 2011
Date: 10 February, 2011 until 15 May, 2011
Curator: Octavio Zaya
Organiser: ARCO_Madrid2011

Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid, Spain, was the venue for a substantial and lavish exhibition at ARGO_Madrid2011 by Yinka Shonibare. An extensively illustrated catalogue/book produced to accompany the exhibition featured texts by Octavio Zaya, Karen E. Milbourne, and Kobena Mercer. The publication featured numerous reproductions of Shonibare’s more recent work, including his celebrated Fourth Plinth commission. The well produced catalogue was bilingual, with all text in Spanish and English.

From the preface, by Ignacio González González, Vice president, Head of Culture and Sports and Spokesperson of the Madrid Government:

“In the large context of the International Fair of Contemporary Art, ARCO-Madrid2011, the Comunidad de Madrid is pleased to present the first one-person exhibition in Spain of the Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare MBE at Sala Alcalá 31.
     Titled The Future of the Past, the show features a series of works rich in visual symbols. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to admire the artistic talent of Shonibare (London, 1962), expressed across various media and supports, and influenced as much by Nigeria, the country where he was brought up, as by Great Britain, the country where he was born and currently resides.
     The Comunidad de Madrid is hosting a selection - chosen by curator Octavio Zaya - of 22 works, most of which were created over the last three years. In them, the artist returns to the characteristic symbols and features of his signature work in order further to explore political, artistic, and cultural issues of the moment and their repercussions.
     The public visiting the exhibition will come away with an overall impression of Shonibare’s work in a range of different media: painting, sculpture, photography, and the moving image, plus elaborate mises-en-scéne with mannequins dressed in sumptuous, colourful African printed fabrics.
     The starting point for the exhibition is Shonibare’s photographic series based on Francisco de Goya’s etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. It then continues with a sculptural installation and a series of photographs inspired by Dante’s Inferno and by Willy Loman, the tragic hero of Arthur Miller’s mythic Death of a Salesman.
     One of the most spectacular works, the installation Cannonball Heaven, was commissioned specifically for this art centre and Shonibare’s first solo exhibition in Spain.”

»  Yinka Shonibare MBE: El Futuro Del Pasado

Book relating to an exhibition, 2011