Just saw the Yinka Shonibare MBE exhibition at the Smithsonian African Art Museum. Shonibare is a fellow RJman and a dandy and I would not be surprised if he reads these forums, in which case I would like to extend him an invitation to join the RJ cat posse. His installations are postcolonial musings and feature sculptures, installations and photos riffing on tropes of 18th and 19th century culture, including an awesome reimagining of Dorian Gray and another of Fragonard's The Swing -- and in previous exhibitions, reworks of Hogarth's Rake's Progress. An Internet Gentleman could find many different axes of accesibility to these works, from the splendidly flamboyant costuming (many in Dutch wax cloth cut in 18th-century ensembles) to the snob value to the references to English and French art history, to the intrinsic interest of the outfits...
This also reminds me of Jsen Wintle, a talented tailor-designer who once had a collection inspired by Dutch colonial exploitation -- who knew?
This also reminds me of Jsen Wintle, a talented tailor-designer who once had a collection inspired by Dutch colonial exploitation -- who knew?
