Yinka Shonibare CBE's Hybrid Mask (Baule/Yaure), 2021, is featured in the exhibition Pablo Picasso: The Legacy of Youth at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, UK. This is the first time a piece from Yinka Shonibare CBE’s latest body of work is presented alongside works by Pablo Picasso.
Shonibare engages with the complexities inherent in identity, describing his own as ‘post- colonial hybrid’. His latest works, a group of Hybrid Masks, are based on examples in Picasso’s collection. Describing the series as ‘Picasso in reverse’, Shonibare says “Picasso was interested in appropriating from another culture, and I also appropriate from European ethnic art.”
The objects that Picasso amassed around him demonstrate his interest in the metamorphosis between human and animal. With a human face and horns, Hybrid Mask (Baule/Yaure) is based on a ceremonial mask from the Baule or Yaure peoples of Côte d’Ivoire. The hand-painted pattern, distinctive of Shonibare’s work, references batik fabrics which were originally inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa.