Now on view: Yinka Shonibare 'Abstract Bronze V' features in our garden space.
We’re excited to welcome Abstract Bronze IV by Yinka Shonibare to our outdoor garden. This striking bronze work captures the idea of harnessing the wind, with the sculpture resembling a vast sheet of fabric, billowing in the breeze. Imbued with a remarkable sense of dynamism, the sculpture embodies the movement of the air as if it is about to dance or move away.
The work is a commanding alternative to conventional monuments of personal power, instead exploring universal experience of historical change. The series was born out of the artist’s Fourth Plinth commission Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle for London’s Trafalgar Square in 2010. Shonibare felt that the ship’s sails, emblazoned with his signature Dutch wax batik fabric, could stand alone.
The patterns on the sculpture are inspired by Indonesian-designed fabrics which were mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s, the material became a signifier of African identity and independence and in Shonibare’s hands, the “perfect metaphor for multi-layered identities.” Adorned with this iconic design, Abstract Bronze IV becomes a powerful metaphor for the movement of people and global interconnectivity over time.
