MONTREAL.- DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art presents Pièces de résistance, the first major solo exhibition in Canada by British artist Yinka Shonibare MBE and the 17th exhibition to be presented at the Foundation since its opening. Born in London of Nigerian heritage, Shonibare moved to Lagos, Nigeria with his family at age three, returning to Britain later to study art. His work has been exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe in such notable contexts as Documenta 10 and the 52nd Biennale di Venezia. This survey exhibition will present seminal and more recent artworks across painting, photo, film, and sculpture.
Shonibare has become known worldwide for his use of Dutch-wax fabric as a conceptual and formal device in all of his work. While stereotypically associated with Africa, the origins of Dutch-wax fabric are actually found in Indonesian batik techniques, which were then industrialized and appropriated by European interests. With its mixed and mistaken provenances, Dutch-wax fabric provides a sumptuous yet probing vehicle to evoke the complexity of concepts such as identity, authenticity, ethnicity, representation, hybridity, race, class, migration, globalization, and power.
Yinka Shonibare MBE employs a multiplicity of strategies, including auto-ethnography and humour in combination with art historical and literary references, to deliver a body of work that is simultaneously seductive and subversive. His critical reflection on power relations between Africa and Europe is delivered through a formal treatment that is both lavish and decadent. In a related area of investigation, he reveals his affection and respect for British culture and institutions while simultaneously questioning class and privilege. It is this ambivalence that most productively unsettles simple binaries and reveals the intricacies involved in negotiating his subject matter.
In 2005, Shonibare was awarded the decoration of Member of the “Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” (MBE). While other Black British artists have turned down this distinction, this acronym has been officially added to his professional name as it underscores the tensions that emerge through his work in regards to the experience of being at once inside and outside, of belonging and of marginalization.
Montreal is not only a site of cultural, historical, social, and political confluences, but also a city of excess that indulges in and celebrates fashion, jazz, and good times. As a result, it provides a provocative and irresistible context for the rich and fascinating body of work presented in Pièces de résistance. DHC/ART wishes to thank James Cohan Gallery, the Shonibare Studio, and the museums and collectors who have helped make this exhibition a reality.
Yinka Shonibare MBE was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004. A major mid-career survey toured from 2008–09 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. In 2011, the artist’s sculpture Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle was selected for the prestigious Fourth Plinth commission series in London’s Trafalgar Square. In 2013, a major survey show was mounted at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK, and travelled in part to Royal Museums Greenwich/The Queen’s House, London, UK; GL Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark; Gdańska Galeria Miejska, Gdansk, Poland; and Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland. Shonibare lives and works in London.
