Yinka Shonibare CBE

James Cohan Gallery, New York 

Acquired from the above in 2004 by the present owner

Yinka Shonibare's Dorian Gray (2001) is a rich and layered series. In this cinematic sequence, Shonibare refashioned the 1945 film The Picture of Dorian Gray, itself a retelling of Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel. In the original narrative, a handsome young white character trades his soul for eternal youth, and his painted portrait, rather than his body, reflects the ravages of age and moral corruption. The tale ends in tragedy when Dorian attempts to destroy the hideous portrait and kills himself instead. In Shonibare’s version, a distinguished figure clad in formal Victorian attire gazes intently at their reflection in an ornately framed mirror, set within an elegantly furnished room. The subject's encounter with their own reflection is laden with deeper meaning, suggesting an introspective examination of identity and self-perception. 

Shonibare’s photographs are a potent metaphor for exploring the roots of power and the constructs of social hierarchy. By inserting himself into the role of an 1890s white English dandy, the artist challenges who gets to be the subject of cultural and historical narratives. As a disabled Englishman of Nigerian descent, his presence in that social world would have been unlikely, if not impossible, in Victorian society. The artist, like the author, plays the role of ‘other’ assuming a position denied to the vast majority. Oscar Wilde was famously persecuted and imprisoned for his sexuality, which made him an outsider to the aristocratic world his characters inhabited.