Nuclear Family

Date1999

Maker Yinka Shonibare, MBE British-Nigerian, born 1962

Label TextYinka Shonibare, MBE (Member of the British Empire), is both complimentary and critical of European portraiture. Dressed for a promenade, his family is vividly dressed but anatomically challenged. About the family, he says, "They're Victorian....You've got the mom, the dad, and the children. They're not a gay couple, they are a conventional family but wearing very extroverted colors." To explain their headlessness, he comments, "The device of removing the heads of the figures serves as a way of not racializing the figures. It also began as a joke about the French Revolution."

In this installation, a family of headless figures face each other, their clothes posing questions about the entangled relationship between Africa and Europe. Proper body language and layers of ruffles speak of the Victorian period in England, when children were dressed with particular care. The blasts of bright colors and barrage of clashing patterns, however, are hardly the combinations that a Victorian would choose. Yinka Shonibare's selections blur the boundaries.

Why has Shonibare chosen this unusual cloth for his installation? Why does this family stand stiffly apart from one another? How do other artists depict family life? How does Yinka Shonibare's Anglo-Nigerian upbringing illuminate parodies that exist in both Nigerian and British art?

Object number99.37

Photo CreditPhoto: Susan A. Cole

For me, the role of the artist is to entertain, to seduce, to provoke, to challenge and to be historically relevant.

Yinka Shonibare, MBE, 2004

Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Secret Victorians: Contemporary Artists and a 19th Century Vision, Jan. 3 - May 6, 2001. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]). Salem, Massachusetts, Peabody Essex Museum, Family Ties, June 12- Sept. 21, 2003. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Anne Gerber Biennial: 2000 1/2: going forward looking back, May 5 - Aug. 4, 2000.Published ReferencesIshikawa, Chiyo et al. "Seattle Art Museum Downtown." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 2007, illus. p. 57 "Seattle Art Museum: Bridging Cultures." London: Scala Publishers Ltd. for the Seattle Art Museum, 2007, pp. 64-65

Credit LinePurchased with funds from Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro in honor of Virginia and Bagley Wright

MediumMixed media installation