WEBVTT

00:00:21.113 --> 00:00:24.024
[ YINKA SHONIBARE ] Odile and Odette
is based on Swan Lake.

00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:28.699
The white swan is trying
to get married to the prince.

00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:33.360
And the black swan
is the magician's daughter,

00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:37.347
who is trying to take
the place of the white swan.

00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:46.800
What i've done with
"Odile and Odette"

00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:51.257
is to blur the boundaries
between the baddie and the good one.

00:00:51.257 --> 00:00:54.717
I've made them into one person.

00:00:56.070 --> 00:00:58.680
They are one, but they're different.

00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:01.978
And that's kind of what that film is about.

00:01:03.521 --> 00:01:10.950
I've always enjoyed using beauty and seduction
as a way of engaging people with the work.

00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:19.339
My figures actually are of mixed race.
They're neither White nor Black,

00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:22.760
and they don't have
any kind of facial features

00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:25.231
that would make you
identify them racially.

00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:33.196
It's also a device that manages
to make the pieces post-racial.

00:01:40.720 --> 00:01:44.200
It's also a joke about
the French Revolution,

00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:47.338
when the aristocracy
had their heads guillotined.

00:01:54.720 --> 00:01:58.683
I'm very fascinated by class
in my work.

00:01:58.801 --> 00:02:05.200
And I like the idea
of parodying or mimicking

00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:07.219
the notion of class.

00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:13.260
My lineage within the Nigerian context
is quite aristocratic.

00:02:16.440 --> 00:02:21.423
My great-great-grandfather
was a Nigerian chief.

00:02:22.040 --> 00:02:24.082
My father is a lawyer.

00:02:24.082 --> 00:02:29.074
So I grew up, really, in a fairly affluent situation.

00:02:29.881 --> 00:02:32.287
Because I didn't grow up

00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:37.320
feeling inferior to anyone,
you know, so I couldn't quite

00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:41.480
understand the hierarchy of race
in this country,

00:02:41.480 --> 00:02:43.920
because it was somewhat
sort of alien to me.

00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:53.560
Although the fabrics
are associated with Africa,

00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:56.800
they have their origins
in Indonesia.

00:02:56.800 --> 00:02:59.778
The Dutch started to produce the fabrics

00:03:00.324 --> 00:03:02.920
industrially
for the Indonesian markets,

00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:05.960
I guess, towards the end
of the 19th century.

00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:10.153
The industrially produced
versions are not so popular in Indonesia.

00:03:10.153 --> 00:03:12.241
So they tried West Africa.

00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:18.700
I like the fact that the fabrics
are multilayered.

00:03:20.480 --> 00:03:24.433
They have this interesting
history that goes back to Indonesia.

00:03:26.071 --> 00:03:27.560
And then they're appropriated

00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:31.691
by Africa and now represent
African identities.

00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:37.339
Things are not always 
what they seem.

00:03:37.909 --> 00:03:40.240
And, you know, so—

00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:44.249
and I sort of enjoy working—
working with that.

00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:05.000
Did you just see the front of "The Economist"?

00:04:05.498 --> 00:04:07.249
"World on the edge".

00:04:09.480 --> 00:04:15.000
I'm interested in the architects
of the present economic disaster.

00:04:15.851 --> 00:04:16.769
So um...

00:04:17.671 --> 00:04:22.533
And so I wanna dedicate a 
drawing to Ben Bernanke

00:04:23.506 --> 00:04:25.153
and Paulson

00:04:26.055 --> 00:04:28.128
and Milton Friedman.

00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:34.120
The drawings actually
also started as a result

00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.734
of issues around climate change.

00:04:38.229 --> 00:04:43.280
Climate really is more for me about the zeitgeist,
you know, trying to capture

00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:45.433
the climate of the moment.

00:04:45.433 --> 00:04:51.440
There are times when I do really kind of objective things.
I take things out of magazines

00:04:51.440 --> 00:04:53.012
or newspapers.

00:04:54.151 --> 00:04:57.851
But then I do intuitive things
alongside that.

00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:09.590
Well, this is my return to 
drawing in 12 years.

00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:18.185
'Cause a lot of my work to date
is in mainly painting, sculpture,

00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:21.560
photography,
and film.

00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:25.840
I kind of wanted to go back
to basics, just do some more

00:05:25.840 --> 00:05:27.290
intimate things.

00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:33.934
I've decided to use flowers
as the starting point.

00:05:36.640 --> 00:05:41.172
And then against the financial
side,

00:05:41.647 --> 00:05:45.000
literally just use pages from 
the "Financial Times".

00:05:46.139 --> 00:05:49.547
Those are cut out
into flower shapes.

00:05:51.849 --> 00:05:55.920
And then those are combined
with the fabrics,

00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:57.881
the batik that I use in my work.

00:05:58.973 --> 00:06:01.513
Those are also cut into flowers.

00:06:01.513 --> 00:06:05.394
So it's a juxtaposition, if you like,

00:06:05.394 --> 00:06:07.935
of nature and culture

00:06:09.004 --> 00:06:16.016
and just trying to see if the drawings can become
more than the contents.

00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:26.400
It would be nice to have more 
"Financial Times" flowers,

00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:28.148
but like different sizes,

00:06:28.148 --> 00:06:30.280
maybe like you did in there.

00:06:30.755 --> 00:06:31.960
- Okay.
- You know?

00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:34.668
[ both chuckle ]

00:06:40.254 --> 00:06:41.960
- People often ask me,

00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:44.680
you know how much work 
does Yinka actually do?

00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:48.600
He's quite a conceptual artist
And for, you know, centuries,

00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:51.120
people haven't always
made their own work, physically.

00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:54.280
There always have been teams of 
people that work on them.

00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:59.400
Working with Yinka,
it's quite a creative process.

00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:04.960
To be able to adapt the 
ideas that he has

00:07:04.960 --> 00:07:07.912
and insert your own ideas.
And he allows for that.

00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:23.865
The show in Sydney was the first 
retrospective of its kind.

00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:27.440
It was a survey of 12 years
of Yinka's work.

00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:29.440
So it was really interesting
to see all these works

00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:31.560
side by side that had never been
pulled together

00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:33.307
for many, many years.

00:07:33.307 --> 00:07:38.160
and really interesting to take a look at the works
from today's context

00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:40.271
and where the work today
is going.

00:07:41.031 --> 00:07:43.926
[ indistinct background chatter ]

00:07:45.238 --> 00:07:47.680
- "Black Gold" is about oil.

00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:51.165
Literally like a sort of oil 
splash on the wall.

00:07:53.016 --> 00:07:57.640
I was thinking about
oil being black gold,

00:07:57.640 --> 00:08:00.644
because it's becoming
a rare commodity.

00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:06.045
I was also thinking particularly
about the oil in Nigeria.

00:08:08.680 --> 00:08:13.000
Western companies have just
totally destroyed

00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:15.540
the flora and fauna
of the area,

00:08:15.540 --> 00:08:19.640
and the rivers
are full of oil, gunk,

00:08:19.640 --> 00:08:22.520
and it's just too sad,
you know?

00:08:22.520 --> 00:08:23.853
It's just horrible.

00:08:26.583 --> 00:08:32.280
"Scramble for Africa" is based on a 
conference that was held in Berlin

00:08:32.280 --> 00:08:35.239
in 1884 to 1885.

00:08:36.070 --> 00:08:42.920
The European countries came together to divide up
africa to decide who would have

00:08:42.920 --> 00:08:44.969
which trading area.

00:08:45.253 --> 00:08:49.960
And so I re-imagined it with these brainless men
sitting around the table,

00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:51.524
literally brainless.

00:08:51.880 --> 00:08:57.752
And they're having this meeting
and deciding the fate of Africa.

00:09:07.040 --> 00:09:10.560
When i was 19,
I got a virus in my spine,

00:09:10.560 --> 00:09:13.281
which left me
completely paralyzed.

00:09:13.400 --> 00:09:16.262
I've been gradually
recovering from that.

00:09:18.535 --> 00:09:19.704
- Yeah, we good with that?

00:09:19.704 --> 00:09:20.846
- Do you want to get rid of it?

00:09:21.771 --> 00:09:27.320
"Dorian Gray" is probably the point at which I first

00:09:27.320 --> 00:09:30.621
talked about the ideas
of disability in my work.

00:09:34.775 --> 00:09:39.295
I put myself in the series 
as Dorian Gray.

00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:43.607
I was thinking more about
my own mortality.

00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:50.320
And my own internal conflicts

00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:54.015
with various kind of moral issues, personal issues.

00:09:56.958 --> 00:09:59.624
And the difficulty of living 
with my own body.

00:10:01.903 --> 00:10:05.550
Difficulty in relation to my own kind 
of vanity as well.

00:10:06.760 --> 00:10:08.720
When i wanted to work
with photography,

00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:11.617
it was obvious that i would use myself
because,

00:10:12.891 --> 00:10:17.481
you know, unfortunately, I am concerned
with myself or, you know—

00:10:17.481 --> 00:10:20.360
I'm kind of self-obsessed,
like most artists.

00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:25.040
And you know, so naturally,
I started working with myself

00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:30.120
and using my own body
to sort of express

00:10:30.120 --> 00:10:31.843
what i'm trying to express.

00:10:33.694 --> 00:10:37.407
I did "Diary of a Victorian Dandy".

00:10:38.784 --> 00:10:43.033
That piece is loosely based on 
Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress"

00:10:43.033 --> 00:10:47.473
It's really about complicity 
with excess.

00:10:49.040 --> 00:10:51.078
Power creates excess.

00:10:52.004 --> 00:10:58.660
And what's my relation to excess,
and how do I play with that?

00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:06.080
Of course, I could choose
to point a finger at it,

00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:11.320
but, you know, I also actually
would like to have the trappings

00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:12.760
of wealth myself,

00:11:12.760 --> 00:11:15.115
even though I may be
criticizing it.

00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:17.734
- Do you know what I mean?

00:11:17.734 --> 00:11:20.360
So you have to get that feeling,
give the feeling

00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:23.060
that there is light
coming from outside.

00:11:23.583 --> 00:11:24.841
- Right.

00:11:24.841 --> 00:11:28.513
- Seeing the early pieces, I can see the journey
that I've made to arrive

00:11:28.513 --> 00:11:31.000
at the later pieces.

00:11:33.160 --> 00:11:40.000
And it starts to become clearer how I 
actually moved from painting to costumes.

00:11:41.828 --> 00:11:44.649
And then to photography.

00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:55.600
And then to moving image.

00:11:56.169 --> 00:12:00.512
You know it seems kind of logical how that would happen.

00:12:02.150 --> 00:12:06.200
"Un Ballo in Maschera" was one of the 
most exhausting things

00:12:06.200 --> 00:12:08.480
I've ever done
in my life.

00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:11.453
I had to learn fast.
It was my first film.

00:12:14.277 --> 00:12:20.000
I had to go from auditioning the dancers to designing the costumes,


00:12:20.285 --> 00:12:23.404
to doing the storyboards for the film.

00:12:23.855 --> 00:12:26.947
Then working with a cinematographer.

00:12:26.947 --> 00:12:29.659
I mean, I didn't even know what Steadicam was.

00:12:29.659 --> 00:12:30.701
I found out.

00:12:31.880 --> 00:12:33.840
And I worked with a choreographer

00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:37.041
called Lisa Toren who is Swedish.

00:12:45.040 --> 00:12:51.696
The Swedish King Gustav III was fighting wars in Russia

00:12:51.696 --> 00:12:55.856
and Denmark and his people were starving.

00:12:56.426 --> 00:12:59.520
He loved the lavish lifestyle

00:12:59.520 --> 00:13:02.941
And he had this fondness 
for masked balls.

00:13:03.903 --> 00:13:08.181
There was a plot to kill 
him at the ball.

00:13:11.452 --> 00:13:13.452
[ gunshot fires ]

00:13:14.400 --> 00:13:18.678
I always imagined I was a very 
strong political republican.

00:13:19.058 --> 00:13:23.030
Republican is anti-monarchy in Europe

00:13:23.030 --> 00:13:25.144
so it means that you don't

00:13:25.144 --> 00:13:29.591
like the hereditary system
of kings and queens.

00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:36.960
Member of the Order of the British Empire
is an award of merit

00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:41.160
given for services
to any discipline, really,

00:13:41.160 --> 00:13:43.318
you know, from science to

00:13:43.318 --> 00:13:46.880
engineering, to charities, to the arts,

00:13:46.880 --> 00:13:51.573
and I was given this award
for services to the arts.

00:13:54.920 --> 00:14:02.151
What I find ironic about it is that actually my work
all along has been a critique of empire.

00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:11.440
So my artist's name now is 
Yinka Shonibare MBE,

00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:14.650
so Member of the Order 
of the British Empire.

00:14:15.802 --> 00:14:18.604
[ chuckles ]

00:14:39.191 --> 00:14:43.303
[ ANNOUNCER ] To learn more about 
Art21: “Art in the Twenty-First Century"

00:14:43.303 --> 00:14:45.303
and its educational resources,

00:14:45.493 --> 00:14:48.794
please visit us online at: 
PBS.org

00:14:52.502 --> 00:14:58.110
Art21: “Art in the Twenty-First Century” 
is available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

00:14:58.229 --> 00:15:00.292
The companion book is also available.

00:15:00.292 --> 00:15:03.526
To order, visit us online at: shopPBS.org

00:15:03.526 --> 00:15:08.232
or call PBS Home Video at: 
1-800-PLAY-PBS