Yinka Shonibare What Do Artists Do All Day?

CHOIR SINGS

As an artist, you're trying to engage your audience.

You know, you want them to be interested in what you're doing.

Beauty is one way in. Of course, you know, the work can be dark as well.

If there are any kind of dark areas, they will find that later

but it's important to kind of get people's attention.

When I was, um...

young, and I lived in Nigeria,

we used to come to London for the summer holidays

and we used to go to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons,

so when I was asked to put my work in Trafalgar Square, I thought,

you know, that was awesome, it just brought back childhood memories.

Except this time, all the pigeons were gone, disappeared.

I think Ken Livingston got rid of them.

But I remember we used to be able to go down there and feed them

and, yeah, that brought back memories, having my artwork there.

I mean, I like the fact that, you know, you can

just look at the work of art, you don't have to know anything about it,

you don't have to be the kind of person that goes to galleries and...

you can have a conversation about it and I've been particularly...

you know, I guess,

excited or moved the way that cab drivers know everything about

what goes on on the fourth plinth

and everyone's got an opinion and that's actually very interesting.

Only in London you have cab drivers arguing with you

about what they like, what they don't like, you know?

Often they'd asked me, you know, "What do you do?"

and I say, "I'm an artist," and they say, "Watercolours or oils?"

And I will say, "Ah, well,

"did you see the ship in a bottle in Trafalgar Square?"

And they go, "Oh, yeah, so you done that?"

I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, I did that."

I think it's just good when art...

You know, when everyone can just have a conversation about art

and see that it's just part of normal life,

it doesn't have to be elitist or anything.

So that's, you know, why I enjoy actually putting my works in public.

So I'm doing this rather surreal piece, I'm doing a sketch of this

kind of man celebrating and he's got all these balloons pulling him up.

So that's Balloon Man I'm actually doing.

It's kind of a slightly surreal but also fun piece about,

you know, celebrating something and...

..you know, being, maybe, overindulging, perhaps.

Do you overindulge?

Maybe when I was little bit younger but I don't think you can be...

very successful at what you do if you are not focused.

Because if you're...

If you're always drunk and drugged out,

you're not going to know what you're doing,

you can't really run your studio if you're like that,

so you do have to be quite disciplined, actually,

to be an artist. It's a myth.

Artists are some of the most disciplined people around,

cos they can't run their studios otherwise.

We get the sketch from Yinka

and you try and get the flavour of what he's trying to get across.

This is a guy who's being lifted off the floor by balloons.

It's an ideal pose of what somebody would look like being pulled up

by balloons but when you try and do that pose for real, you can't do it.

So you have to do it in real life

with people hanging from the ceiling on ropes

and that way you get a better idea of what

the pose is actually going to be like, which is more like this one.

He's based that on some of our images

that we've done from life and, out of about 300 poses,

the overall winner was this one,

which was me doing the pose in that instance.

So that's how it gets refined down to the actual pose

that we're going to sculpt from.

He gives a lot, so he's easy to get into the head of

and he's very good at communicating what it is he wants

and he has a definite palette of materials, colours, etc,

and ideas that he likes to use.

They're anonymous figures, kind of a bit everyman-like.

The only thing that's often detailed is the hands

and these we cast from life.

The rest of the bodies are like a shop-mannequin body.

Quite anonymous-looking.

Why do you think that he likes them to be sort of a bit anonymous?

Um, I think that's part of the magic of it.

If you start putting a likeness onto a figure, it becomes a...

a sculpture of someone, rather than an abstract sculpt of a figure.

He likes to end up with a finished sculpture

that's magical when you look at it,

it's got a charm and a whimsy and a magical quality.

# Since I came to know you, baibe

# I've been telling you how sweet you are

# I've been telling you how good you are

# Now I want you try to tell me how I look

# Tell me, tell me, tell me

# Tell me, tell me, tell me Please, tell me how I look

# You look so good

# Fantastic man... #

My work got really political. I was making work

about what was going on in Russia at that time - perestroika -

and then one of my tutors said,

"Why aren't you making authentic African art?"

And, um...

I just didn't know what he meant by that, really.

And so I kept sort of trying to find out what authentic African art is,

you know, as somebody who was born in London

but then grew up in Lagos, Nigeria,

but also in a very kind of cosmopolitan city,

I didn't quite understand why I had to do,

you know, traditional African art.

So I went to Brixton Market, where I found the fabrics

and then they said the fabrics are Indonesian-influenced fabrics

produced by the Dutch and then for sales to the African market.

But I always imagined that the fabrics were authentically African,

so I thought the story was quite interesting.

And then that's kind of how I started to incorporate

the fabrics into my work.

I mean, I've got a disability and I do have some physical restrictions.

At first, I wanted to do large, abstract pictures but then I thought,

"Actually, it will be quite difficult for me to do that."

And also, conceptually,

a lot of abstract paintings were made by, you know, white men

and I decided to actually challenge that

and produce something that's got lots of patterns from the market.

It's not high art, it's popular culture.

And I've kind of fragmented this sort of huge sort of white male ego

into this sort of tiny...

um, tiny canvases.

That's kind of why they ended up, you know, looking like that.

And I guess that's sort of where the use of the fabric started

and then, subsequently, I started to use the fabrics

in the costumes as well.

All his figures are three fabrics, so you get a light,

a dark and medium one.

Or hot, cold, medium. And then...

..he kind of leaves it up to us, leaves it up to me,

to choose how I use it.

So what I've done is cut out the section

that actually will be visible in the garment when it's made up,

cos some bits are sort of hidden because of the cut,

and I'm just moving it around until I get a piece

that looks like it might work in the garment and...

..with the colours of the underlying pieces, you know,

the waistcoat and shirt underneath.

But this one is quite a varied... You know, varied colours, so...

But I find quite often if I don't think about it

and just move this around and then...

one bit will just be more pleasing than another

and that's what you go for.

I'll trim it down, it's fine.

Right, I've just got to whack it under the iron.

Can I take it off?

Yeah, you can take it off.

What's great is that...

..there's a lot more sort of artistic freedom for me as a maker

because I can...

You know, I'm given the fabrics and then I can work with them

and do what I like with them,

which is a really lovely way to work because...

I'm kind of used to, before that, having to...

You know, there's a lot of stopping and starting

and having things checked by designers and changes made,

so it's really lovely to have the sort of flow of being able to...

just decide what you're going to do and work it through

and know that, you know, you're trusted to do that.

How's it going, Miranda?

It's getting there. It...

..will suddenly turn into a coat with sleeves, hopefully.

Yes, you feel like you're kind of not getting anywhere

when things are in bits and everything has to be kept...

Well, a lot of elements have to be kept separate right until the end.

And then...

..it comes together fairly near completion.

And just when you think you're not going to be done in time.

And...it starts to happen.

Um, yeah, I mean, you know, when I was 19 I got a virus in my spine,

which left me completely paralysed.

It's called transverse myelitis.

And, um...I've...

I use a wheelchair now but I wasn't using a wheelchair for a few years.

But, you know, I manage. I've developed ways of working.

You know, I have other people helping me produce things,

the very heavy work.

But, you know, I can paint and draw and I can draw what I want,

so I can describe what I want and draw it if I need to.

But, yeah, it's not actually...

stopped my work.

I find it really difficult to figure out

how my work would be different, actually, if I didn't have

some of the physical difficulties because,

literally, it happened just before I started college,

so I've always worked with some physical restrictions.

But I can't...

I don't know, really, how my work would be different if I didn't

because I can't really reverse time and I don't know

if I would make different things

or if my thought processes would be the same or, you know...

If you're used to something, you don't think about it, really,

you just get on with it, I guess.

You know, even a person with a disability is multifaceted

and they're thinking... You know, simultaneously,

they're thinking about lots of other things as well.

You know, they're thinking about their life,

they're thinking about, you know, all sorts of things,

so they're not just about their physical disabilities,

it would be not entirely honest to just say

that's the only thing I ever think about.

I did The Picture Of Dorian Gray,

which is Oscar Wilde's Picture Of Dorian Gray,

because of my own body and I was interested in age and time

and mortality and all those questions, so...

And The Picture Of Dorian Gray is something that captures

all of those issues that we think about in terms of life and death

and ageing and so I find it fascinating.

I think, you know, you're thinking about really compelling things

that you want to do and you do them

but until you've actually got that out of your system,

I guess you can't move on, you've got to do it.

It's good, yeah, they always look perfect, the costumes.

Yinka uses really good costume makers.

With the costume, it's become something else.

We'll add two balloons, yellow and orange,

and we can add them over this side here.

There's small little pieces on the finger here

that need to be just touched up and on the other side as well.

Yep. Got those.

I'll take this shoe away with me as well today

and there's little studs in it that shouldn't be there

and it needs to be dyed, the sole should be dark, yeah.

We'll get rid of those.

And the foot.

The foot needs to be brought forward, yeah.

-So it's sitting flat on the floor? Rather than lifted up?

-Yeah, yeah.

So the ball of the foot is forward.

They're just calling me, so...

Hello.

OK. They've arrived.

Hmm.

I mean, I'll just stand back a bit.

Let's have a look.

Yeah, that's looking... That's looking good.

I'll just have a look here.

-So there's two more balloons to be added.

-OK, yeah.

So if we made those orange and yellow, maybe?

-Orange, yellow and can you add a black?

-Black?

THEY CHUCKLE

-Black, yeah.

-Actually, you know what?

I've changed my mind about black.

The reason for that, actually, is that, the head being black,

I thought that would be two blacks and I think that might be...

Um... That will take away from the strength of the black down there.

We just have a few little things that we're going to tidy up

with the hands and then the foot also.

So that the ball of the foot is flat on the base plate.

At the moment, his heel's flat, but his ball is in the air.

-Raising up.

-OK.

So it will give more weight to the foot if we...

Or more balance to the foot

if we can bring the ball of the foot forward.

But I don't want it flat on the ground, though.

I mean, the foot is OK kind of being slightly up like that.

But surely if...if he was... If he was trying to balance on his heel,

he wouldn't really be flat on his...

-No, no, that's what I'm saying, I like it that way, it's good.

-Mm.

Phew!

-I'm going to cross that off me list.

-Yeah, it's good.

I mean, I know that, you know, er, it's natural to want to think about

what you could actually physically do.

But, with an artwork, it's in the realm of fantasy,

-it's not what you can actually physically do.

-Yeah.

So comparing it to what a person can physically do

doesn't make sense for an artwork.

Because it's not, you know...

It's about doing the impossible, it's not about...

It's not about the possible.

-Got the heads all wrong, if you will.

-Er, yeah.

# VIP

# Very important plastic

# VIP

# Very important plastic

# VIP

# Very important plastic

# VIP

# Very important plastic... #

I wanted to do that at that time because...

there was a lot of protest art.

A lot of it was quite sort of miserable and dreary, really,

and I felt that I wasn't miserable.

Of course, I don't like what happened to my own history

or African history or the history of colonisation

but I was brought up in fairly comfortable surroundings in Africa

and I wanted to poke fun, really,

as opposed to being the victim.

And I felt that, you know, just dress up

and have a good time. That's the way to respond to it.

So that's what I did. So I do have my own way of approaching things.

You know, I think parody and humour

is a good way to deal with some of these things.

Um, I think it's nice to see, you know, other black artists

doing very well. I think it's, you know...

And, again, as somebody coming from Nigeria,

it's not a particularly unique thing for a Nigerian

because everyone's black in Nigeria,

so, you know, if a black person does something,

you just take it as normal.

I mean, there's nothing... It's not news.

But, of course, I understand that, in this context, it might be

perceived as news but to see it as news is also

a form of discrimination in a way because it's lowering expectations.

But I don't mind being lumped together or not lumped together,

as long as I am seen.

So, you know, I'm quite happy with whoever I'm lumped together with.

-Welcome.

-Ah, Stephen.

OK.

Here we are.

-Wow.

-What do you think?

-That's...looking good.

Right at the centre in the front room, of course. Where you belong.

Truly great, actually, that you've got it just...

on its own in the middle.

I think...yeah.

Yinka, I didn't know this at the time,

but he was trained as a painter at Goldsmiths

and the first work I saw, really, was Double Dutch.

It was like no other language I had seen in painting.

This idea of painting on African textiles

and playing around with patterns and paint

and the juxtaposition of the two together really entranced me.

Enough to...

..reach out to him and to start a dialogue

and that's really how it all began.

I met Stephen at the beginning of my career and he kept faith with me

and trusted me and that enabled me to do the most incredible things.

Because, actually, someone Stephen discovering somebody like me...

Then the work eventually goes into museums

and that's what the general public will kind of see.

So, um, I found myself in a showing in Trafalgar Square

on the fourth plinth.

You know, if I hadn't had that early support,

none of that would have happened.

And, also, just very basic emotional support.

You know, kind of supporting you,

even when you're coming up with crap ideas and your work is no good,

there's a constant, there's somebody encouraging you

when the work is bad also and also when the work is good.

Actually, as a result of Stephen's support,

I have been able to support a lot of younger artists too.

I mean, I have a project space in my studio

and I've shown over 100 artists, so they can do experimental work

and so on.

But I wouldn't even have been able to serve other people

-if I hadn't have had that kind of support from Stephen.

-It's...

..exciting, it's fun, it's engaging.

It's everything a work of art should be.

Yeah, I mean, it's a celebratory piece.

But I also wanted it to be, um...

inclusive of everybody in the gallery,

because, you know, it's the 20th anniversary of the gallery

and so the globe head actually has names of all the different artists.

So it's meant to be an inclusive piece but an exciting piece

cos, after all, you can't have a party on your own.

So you celebrate with others.

I think that art movements are always made by others, really.

Artists don't really...

You know, you don't wake up and say,

"I'm going to be in a movement today."

No artist ever does that.

I think people kind of lump you together and say,

"Right, there you go, that's a movement."

I'm very interested in exploring the poetical imagination more.

A lot of the work, some of them would be childhood memories.

They're kind of dreamy and quite surreal.

And, yeah, so I don't quite know how that work will evolve

because I'm only at the beginning of all that at the moment.

So we'll see what will happen.

MUSIC: I No Get Eye For Back by Fela Kuti