The group exhibition Re-Creation brings together contemporary artists from Africa and its diaspora and explores their varied reinterpretations of works from the art historical cannon.
Yinka Shonibare CBE’s Un Ballo in Maschera (Conspirators), 2004, is featured in the exhibition. The work is a set of five costumes created for the conspirators in the artist’s first film, Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), 2004. Loosely based on the 1859 opera with the same title by Giuseppe Verdi, Shonibare’s film resembles a fantastic journey into 18th Century Sweden, where King Gustav III is assassinated at a masked ball. This elaborate costume drama is a tongue-in-cheek display of courtly excess and frivolity, featuring performers in Dutch wax ball gowns, frock coats and ornate Venetian-style masks.