Yinka Shonibare, MBE and Sartorial Parody: Costuming as Subversive Practice

Yinka Shonibare, MBE and Sartorial Parody: Costuming as Subversive Practice

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Yinka Shonibare, a British artist from Nigerian origins, is heir to the tradition of masquerading and, like many postmodern and postcolonial artists, uses clothing and costuming as a means to probe identity construction.By revisiting European masterpieces or humboldt cherry cider parodying academic painting he underscores the artificiality of art and explores power-relations from an artistic, cultural, but also economic and ideological perspective.The presence of the fabric enables him to replace the colonised on the historical stage.His combination of wax-fabric, a signifier for cultural interconnectedness, and period costumes is compared to the process of translation as defined by globalisation theorists.

Wavering between parody and satire, his installations operate multiple critical strategies hinging on humour as a means of containing fragmentation.This analysis focuses on costuming as a complex tool for exploring the other and dulces mara candy flavors the self.