Ruins Decorated marks Yinka Shonibare MBE’s first solo exhibition at Goodman Gallery, his second solo exhibition in South Africa and a rare moment of visibility on the African continent. For this exhibition of new and never before exhibited work, Shonibare asks questions on what it means to forge modern African identities and complicates debates on cultural appropriation.
"What I do is create a kind of mongrel. In reality most people’s cultures have evolved out of this mongrelisation, but people don’t acknowledge that." – Yinka Shonibare MBE. Through beguiling sculptures, staged photographs and paintings, film and installation, Shonibare considers narratives of power and reinvention in relation to the rise and fall of western empires and the struggles for African Independence.