Skipping Girl
1 of 2
Object Label
ART OF INNOVATION
These three works speak to the highly inventive history of Yoruba art. Incorporating outside materials, they each reflect how both a colonial past and global exchange shaped shifting ideas about local identity.
Even this bead-embroidered crown, the ultimate symbol of Yoruba kingship, is the product of a complex global story. Although the Yoruba have a long history of glassmaking, the large, multicolored ade crown depicts figures wearing bowler hats and contains beads imported by the British in the late nineteenth century into what would soon become the Nigeria colony. The smaller beaded crown, known as an oríkògbòfó, is an evolution of the ade form, but it is modeled after the wig of a British barrister (lawyer), still worn in court today by members of the Nigerian judiciary.
Yinka Shonibare, a British artist of Yoruba and Nigerian descent, used Dutch wax-printed fabric to create Skipping Girl. This material—a commodity associated with Africa but actually created in Europe, based on Indonesian designs, and sold in West Africa—serves as a symbol of the web of economic and cultural interrelationships among Africa, Asia, and Europe. Shonibare exposes cultural "authenticity" as an illusion and evokes the layers of historical connections among global cultures.
Caption
Yinka Shonibare MBE British–Nigerian, born 1961. Skipping Girl, 2009. Life-size fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton, mixed media, installed: 50 1/4 x 29 x 43 in. (127.6 x 73.7 x 109.2 cm) height measured from top of proper left hand; width measured from elbow to the rope in proper right hand; depth measured from the front of the back to the back of the rope. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Edward A. Bragaline and purchase gift of William K. Jacobs, Jr., by exchange and Mary Smith Dorward Fund, 2010.8. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2010.8_PS6.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Skipping Girl
Date
2009
Medium
Life-size fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton, mixed media
Classification
Dimensions
installed: 50 1/4 x 29 x 43 in. (127.6 x 73.7 x 109.2 cm) height measured from top of proper left hand; width measured from elbow to the rope in proper right hand; depth measured from the front of the back to the back of the rope
Credit Line
Gift of Edward A. Bragaline and purchase gift of William K. Jacobs, Jr., by exchange and Mary Smith Dorward Fund
Accession Number
2010.8
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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Frequent Art Questions
Can you share some information on this artist?
Over the past decade, Yinka Shonibare has become well known for his exploration of colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalization. Shonibare’s work explores these issues, alongside those of race and class, through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and, more recently, film and performance. Using this wide range of media, the artist examines in particular the construction of identity and tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories. Mixing Western art history and literature, he asks what constitutes our collective contemporary identity today.This work titled "Skipping Girl" shows Shonibare's signature style, which is the portrayal of headless human figures dressed in brightly colored clothing. The artist is really interested in the crossing of cultures through colonialism and migrations.The fabric he uses is really complex. It is worn in Africa so often that we instantly associate it with Africa, but it was actually made in the Netherlands. And the patterned design of the clothing is a style that we would have see in England at the turn of the last century.Why doesn't the Skipping Girl have a head?
There are a couple of explanations to the missing head in Skipping Girl. The artist, Yinka Shonibare, has said that the reason he doesn't give heads to his sculptures (this is a recurrent motif in his work) is so that the viewer can move away from race identification. By not giving the sculpture specific features, the race can be ambiguous.However, the curator also provided an interpretation of this where he made a relationship between this sculpture and overall West African belief. The Yoruba people believe that the Ashe or spirit is located in the head. During colonization the Yoruba people perceived the new governing agents as being missing their Ashe or their spirit, in this way the artist is also commenting on the legacy of colonization.Yes I guess I'm interested to know - why doesn't she have a head?
The Yoruba people of Africa believe that an individual’s spiritual essence, or soul (ase), is located in the head.The artist may be suggesting that this figure is soul-less, because she has been influenced so much by the foreign forces of colonialism. (Her clothing is very Western, for example!) It's like a loss of identity.Shonibare is really concerned with the ways that different cultures overlap through history and trade and colonialism and what they each gain or lose in the process.Many of the other works in that installation show foreign influences on African culture for example, the small colorful beads that appear in masks and clothing were often imported.
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