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| Yinka Shonibare |
Books: 'Flash of the Spirit' by Robert Farris Thompson is a book I
am reading now. It's about African and African-American art and
philosophy. I often express ideas in my work related to current affairs
and on a weekly basis I tend to read 'The Economist' and the weekend
'Financial Times'. For 'Crash Willy, a piece on show in the Royal
Academy Summer Exhibition, I was influenced by the credit crunch and
drew from both non-fiction resources as well as fictional tales, such as
'Death of a Salesman'.
Television: My guilty pleasure used to be 'Desperate Housewives'.
I was fascinated by it because it is a window into suburbia, a way of
knowing and relating the most banal kind of existence. I was also
touched by the resourcefulness of the people featured in the BBC's
'Welcome to Lagos'. They seemed to make a lot from the little that they
had.
Yinka Shonibare MBE: Looking Up is at Nouveau Musée National de
Monaco (Nmnm.mc) to 16 January 2011. He is also exhibiting as part of
Nothing Is Forever at South London Gallery, London SE5
(Southlondongallery.org) to 5 September.
Visual Arts: Guest Projects is my Hackney studio-cum-gallery. The
exhibition on now is Happy End and is curated by Yu-Chen Wang. The show
continues to evolve every week through a series of installations and
performances (until 11 July). There was an amazing performance by The
Callas that was a cross between punk rock and Andy Warhol's Factory
scene.
Music: Music on constant rotation in the studio is: Alicia Keys's
"Empire State of Mind", Dizzee Rascal's "Dance wiv Me", anything by Gil
Scott-Heron, Jay-Z, Hot Chip, M.I.A., Jill Scott or Fela Kuti (below),
and I'm enjoying Nigerian singer Nneka's last album.
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