2 years ago
Yinka Shonibare - Scramble for Africa, 2003
Shonibare is best known for the satires of colonialism and other power structures that he carries out by making headless figures dressed in 18th or 19th-century costumes. Those costumes are always made of “African” cloth that actually originated with the Dutch, who lifted it from the Batik cloth of their Indonesian colony, then marketed it to Africa.God I love clever art. Also check his piece The Swing (after Fragonard).
via absurdlakefront
The global connections to cloth through colonialism is truly astounding. I had no idea African prints were originally batik’s even though they bear a mighty resemblance. I just always considered the prints as coincidental, as a result of meta-consciousness.
