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[ YINKA SHONIBARE ] Odile and Odette
is based on Swan Lake.

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The white swan is trying
to get married to the prince.

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And the black swan
is the magician's daughter,

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who is trying to take
the place of the white swan.

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What i've done with
"Odile and Odette"

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is to blur the boundaries
between the baddie and the good one.

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I've made them into one person.

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They are one, but they're different.

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And that's kind of what that film is about.

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I've always enjoyed using beauty and seduction
as a way of engaging people with the work.

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My figures actually are of mixed race.
They're neither White nor Black,

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and they don't have
any kind of facial features

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that would make you
identify them racially.

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It's also a device that manages
to make the pieces post-racial.

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It's also a joke about
the French Revolution,

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when the aristocracy
had their heads guillotined.

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I'm very fascinated by class
in my work.

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And I like the idea
of parodying or mimicking

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the notion of class.

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My lineage within the Nigerian context
is quite aristocratic.

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My great-great-grandfather
was a Nigerian chief.

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My father is a lawyer.

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So I grew up, really, in a fairly affluent situation.

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Because I didn't grow up

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feeling inferior to anyone,
you know, so I couldn't quite

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understand the hierarchy of race
in this country,

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because it was somewhat
sort of alien to me.

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Although the fabrics
are associated with Africa,

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they have their origins
in Indonesia.

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The Dutch started to produce the fabrics

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industrially
for the Indonesian markets,

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I guess, towards the end
of the 19th century.

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The industrially produced
versions are not so popular in Indonesia.

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So they tried West Africa.

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I like the fact that the fabrics
are multilayered.

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They have this interesting
history that goes back to Indonesia.

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And then they're appropriated

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by Africa and now represent
African identities.

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Things are not always 
what they seem.

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And, you know, so—

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and I sort of enjoy working—
working with that.

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Did you just see the front of "The Economist"?

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"World on the edge".

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I'm interested in the architects
of the present economic disaster.

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So um...

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And so I wanna dedicate a 
drawing to Ben Bernanke

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and Paulson

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and Milton Friedman.

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The drawings actually
also started as a result

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of issues around climate change.

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Climate really is more for me about the zeitgeist,
you know, trying to capture

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the climate of the moment.

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There are times when I do really kind of objective things.
I take things out of magazines

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or newspapers.

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But then I do intuitive things
alongside that.

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Well, this is my return to 
drawing in 12 years.

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'Cause a lot of my work to date
is in mainly painting, sculpture,

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photography,
and film.

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I kind of wanted to go back
to basics, just do some more

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intimate things.

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I've decided to use flowers
as the starting point.

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And then against the financial
side,

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literally just use pages from 
the "Financial Times".

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Those are cut out
into flower shapes.

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And then those are combined
with the fabrics,

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the batik that I use in my work.

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Those are also cut into flowers.

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So it's a juxtaposition, if you like,

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of nature and culture

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and just trying to see if the drawings can become
more than the contents.

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It would be nice to have more 
"Financial Times" flowers,

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but like different sizes,

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maybe like you did in there.

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- Okay.
- You know?

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[ both chuckle ]

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- People often ask me,

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you know how much work 
does Yinka actually do?

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He's quite a conceptual artist
And for, you know, centuries,

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people haven't always
made their own work, physically.

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There always have been teams of 
people that work on them.

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Working with Yinka,
it's quite a creative process.

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To be able to adapt the 
ideas that he has

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and insert your own ideas.
And he allows for that.

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The show in Sydney was the first 
retrospective of its kind.

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It was a survey of 12 years
of Yinka's work.

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So it was really interesting
to see all these works

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side by side that had never been
pulled together

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for many, many years.

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and really interesting to take a look at the works
from today's context

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and where the work today
is going.

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[ indistinct background chatter ]

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- "Black Gold" is about oil.

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Literally like a sort of oil 
splash on the wall.

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I was thinking about
oil being black gold,

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because it's becoming
a rare commodity.

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I was also thinking particularly
about the oil in Nigeria.

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Western companies have just
totally destroyed

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the flora and fauna
of the area,

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and the rivers
are full of oil, gunk,

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and it's just too sad,
you know?

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It's just horrible.

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"Scramble for Africa" is based on a 
conference that was held in Berlin

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in 1884 to 1885.

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The European countries came together to divide up
africa to decide who would have

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which trading area.

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And so I re-imagined it with these brainless men
sitting around the table,

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literally brainless.

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And they're having this meeting
and deciding the fate of Africa.

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When i was 19,
I got a virus in my spine,

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which left me
completely paralyzed.

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I've been gradually
recovering from that.

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- Yeah, we good with that?

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- Do you want to get rid of it?

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"Dorian Gray" is probably the point at which I first

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talked about the ideas
of disability in my work.

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I put myself in the series 
as Dorian Gray.

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I was thinking more about
my own mortality.

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And my own internal conflicts

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with various kind of moral issues, personal issues.

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And the difficulty of living 
with my own body.

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Difficulty in relation to my own kind 
of vanity as well.

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When i wanted to work
with photography,

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it was obvious that i would use myself
because,

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you know, unfortunately, I am concerned
with myself or, you know—

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I'm kind of self-obsessed,
like most artists.

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And you know, so naturally,
I started working with myself

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and using my own body
to sort of express

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what i'm trying to express.

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I did "Diary of a Victorian Dandy".

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That piece is loosely based on 
Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress"

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It's really about complicity 
with excess.

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Power creates excess.

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And what's my relation to excess,
and how do I play with that?

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Of course, I could choose
to point a finger at it,

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but, you know, I also actually
would like to have the trappings

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of wealth myself,

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even though I may be
criticizing it.

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- Do you know what I mean?

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So you have to get that feeling,
give the feeling

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that there is light
coming from outside.

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- Right.

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- Seeing the early pieces, I can see the journey
that I've made to arrive

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at the later pieces.

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And it starts to become clearer how I 
actually moved from painting to costumes.

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And then to photography.

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And then to moving image.

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You know it seems kind of logical how that would happen.

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"Un Ballo in Maschera" was one of the 
most exhausting things

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I've ever done
in my life.

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I had to learn fast.
It was my first film.

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I had to go from auditioning the dancers to designing the costumes,


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to doing the storyboards for the film.

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Then working with a cinematographer.

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I mean, I didn't even know what Steadicam was.

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I found out.

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And I worked with a choreographer

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called Lisa Toren who is Swedish.

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The Swedish King Gustav III was fighting wars in Russia

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and Denmark and his people were starving.

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He loved the lavish lifestyle

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And he had this fondness 
for masked balls.

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There was a plot to kill 
him at the ball.

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[ gunshot fires ]

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I always imagined I was a very 
strong political republican.

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Republican is anti-monarchy in Europe

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so it means that you don't

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like the hereditary system
of kings and queens.

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Member of the Order of the British Empire
is an award of merit

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given for services
to any discipline, really,

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you know, from science to

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engineering, to charities, to the arts,

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and I was given this award
for services to the arts.

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What I find ironic about it is that actually my work
all along has been a critique of empire.

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So my artist's name now is 
Yinka Shonibare MBE,

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so Member of the Order 
of the British Empire.

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[ chuckles ]

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[ ANNOUNCER ] To learn more about 
Art21: “Art in the Twenty-First Century"

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and its educational resources,

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please visit us online at: 
PBS.org

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Art21: “Art in the Twenty-First Century” 
is available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

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The companion book is also available.

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To order, visit us online at: shopPBS.org

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or call PBS Home Video at: 
1-800-PLAY-PBS