Yinka Shonibare MBE
Kaleidoscope

, 2014

Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil

8 x 8 x 27 cm (3.2 x 3.2 x 10.5 in)

Edition of 45

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About Yinka Shonibare MBE

After growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, Yinka Shonibare MBE (born 1962 in London, UK) moved back to London where he studied at Byam Shaw School of Art and earned an MA from Goldsmith’s College in 1991. Shonibare fist became known for his distinctive use of batik and later for producing installation-based work that employs dance, costume, and conceptual and historiographical choreography to explore identity and gender politics. His costumed… Read more

About the artwork

In his newest edition, Kaleidoscope, Yinka Shonibare playfully reclaims an object from a familiar British tradition and subverts it through the use of batik patterns and by transforming the shape into that of a phallus. The opening at the head of the phallus reveals a distorted image of Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Shonibare has replaced the familiar image of the ideal female nude with a photograph of a well-endowed male, subverting the image and preforming an act of reverse objectification. This object can also be seen as a subversive take on 19th century Victoriana, and specifically the "peep show" images of women viewed through devices such as a kaleidoscope.