Yinka Shonibare
"They are hybrid figures. They are part Victorian, part African, part Dutch. They are an expression of the identity of a contemporary post-colonial birth."
Our interview with Turner Prize nominee and MBE Yinka Shonibare
Could you tell us a bit about your background? Where did you study?
I was born in London but grew up in Nigeria. I came back to London when I was 17 and studied art.
Art X Lagos is West Africa's first international art fair. Could you talk about the art fair a bit and the work you have on show there?
I'm going to be showing a screen print, which is a self-portrait based on Warhol self-portraits. And then I will have a couple of other prints based on the myths surrounding twins in Nigeria.
BUTTERFLY KID (GIRL) IV, 2017
BOY BALANCING KNOWLEDGE 2015
Print on show for Art X Lagos
THE GHOST OF ELIZA JUMEL 2015
APOLLO OF THE BELVEDERE (AFTER LEOCHARES), 2017
APHRODITE OF KNIDOS (AFTER PRAXITELES), 2017
Could you also tell us a bit about the guest projects? How did that start?
Yes, the guest projects. It's a project base for emerging artists. It's an experimental space that's part of my studio. An artist sends in proposals and the successful applicants get a month to use the space. They can either make work in the space or show their work. At the end of that, it's up to them. Some just want to put exhibitions, some want to use it for both. And next year it's going to be 10 years old. But as you know in London, it's very hard for the emerging artist to find spaces to show their work so I wanted to offer that.
Can you tell us a bit about how you spend your day and your studio routine? What's your studio like?
I work across many studios. A studio in my garden, which is where I do my drawings. I also have a larger studio with about five other people working it. And the studio where the projects base is. So that one is more of a social studio, where meetings take place. And then there are other affiliated studios where really big things get made as well. And there's a painting studio. But the big studio is mainly where the project space is. That's mainly the design studio, really.
With Brexit and Trump and the general feeling of things kind of going backwards, do you feel artists have a role to play? Can art help in any way, you think?
I mean not directly in politics or within culture– of course an artist can work to challenge the kind of nationalist development. Curious people, anyway. So I don't think that those nationalist views are very creative. They're kind of separatist and rigid in a way, and so I think that's where art can actually counter that. Through their own curiosity, really.
Could you tell us a bit about the figures you make. Where the fabric's from and why do they have globes on them?
Well those figures have a relationship to my own background. They are hybrid figures. They are part Victorian, part African, part Dutch. They are an expression, if you like, of the identity of a contemporary post-colonial birth.
What artwork can we see recently that has resonated with you at all?
I saw a show that I really liked which was the Giacometti show. I loved the way his work has evolved over time.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
Anything new and exciting. Yes. There is a public sculpture I'm going to be installing at Central Park in New York in March next year.
Photographer credit, image courtesy: Courtesy the artist, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, James Cohan Gallery, New York.Photographer: Stephen White
Publish Date: 23/11/17
Derek Ridgers
"I had a partner and two kids before I started taking photographs and, if not for that, I might have been lost in one of these subcultures myself. Taken drugs, acted badly, maybe even have been a rock star. I’d probably be dead by now. So photography in one sense saved my life."
Could you tell us a bit about yourself, where did you study?
When I was 16 I opted out of my school sixth form and went to Ealing School of Art. Initially I wanted to be a famous painter. Then a great art director. I suppose I still do really but I think those ships may have now sailed.
But I certainly never wanted to be a photographer. It's just that when punk happened I found myself in the right place at the right time, with a camera. Then once I’d started, I could never quite think of a reason to stop. Photography gradually drew me in and took over my life.
You recently had a two person show at Charlie Smith London, with the painter Sam Jackson, curated by Faye Dowling. Could you talk about the show and how it came about?
To be honest, you’d be far better asking the curator Faye Dowling about this. When the suggestion of doing a joint show was first mooted, I felt sure I had a handle on the shows direction but I was wrong. Faye saw a different connection in our work than was the most obvious - words written on faces (tattooed in the case of my photographs).
Maybe it was a more subtle connection, the outsider thing perhaps?
Aga, Leisure Lounge, Holborn | 1996
Your photography often depicts youth culture situated in dark underground night clubs, what draws you to capture these moments in club-life?
It seems rather obvious to me now but I think, when I was young, I hankered after being more like the people I photographed. Richard Avedon used to say that his portraits were more about him than the people he photographed and I think there is a bit of that in my work too.
I had a partner and two kids before I started taking photographs and, if not for that, I might have been lost in one of these subcultures myself. Taken drugs, acted badly, maybe even have been a rock star. I’d probably be dead by now.
So photography in one sense saved my life.
Tattoos often appear in your images, would you say that they are an integral part of your work?
Not really. Almost everyone has tattoos these days. Once upon a time it was a clue that people saw themselves as outsiders of some sort. The opposite is true now.
But I do like to shoot heavily tattooed people although I never focus on the tattoos themselves. These days you can see a lot very pretty faces that are covered in tattoos. It’s almost like they’re trying to mess up their looks so that people will look a little deeper. Of course, I would imagine it becomes rather counter-productive.
Install shot at CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, featuring Derek Ridgers and Sam Jackson
Install shot at CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, featuring Derek Ridgers and Sam Jackson
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine? What is your studio like?
I have a an enormous archive, so I will spend a proportion of almost every day trying to manage and organise that. I have a lot of scanning to do and, so far, I’ve probably only scanned about 5% of it.
I’ve never had a studio. I have a background cloth nailed to the ceiling of my office and I shoot in there sometimes but no one could describe that as a studio. My inspiration is always people and places and therefore to work constantly in one place would not be ideal.
What artwork/photography have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
Next month I’m in a show in Budapest with many other photographers, some from Russia and Eastern Europe and some of them are very young. It’s called Golden Boundaries.
When I saw that work I was blown away. These are young people who are mostly photographing themselves, their friends and their families but doing it in a really beautiful, artistic way. If I’d seen that kind of work 40 years ago, I probably would never have started shooting myself.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
Yes. I’m currently working on a monograph, which it’s been my ambition to do now for my entire career - so that I could be more like my photographic heroes. Just a book of my best photographs. Everything and anything. No other theme, just that.
It will be published in September.
All images courtesy of the artist and CHARLIE SMITH LONDON
Banner image: Psychic TV Gig | 1986
Publish Date: 23/11/17
Sam Jackson
"on the face are language based thoughts; or scribblings in the same way Cy Twombly might utilise the line as a mode to form a personal language that also acts on a purely aesthetic level."
Could you tell us a bit about yourself, where did you study?
For a while in my early life I was only interested in hanging out with mates, drinking, smoking and walking the streets. It was my father that really instilled in me the importance of education, music and art, and looking back I would have been lost without that guidance and experience.
I studied at Middlesex University which was great - we had superb spaces towards the end of the course. I developed a real dialogue with the staff. Jon Thompson, who had been Damien Hirst’s tutor at Goldsmiths, was head of the MA; and Jim Mooney, who was then teaching on the PhD at the Royal College, helped me to develop a meaningful discourse within my practice. I then applied for a residency at the Florence Trust in Islington.
At the Florence Trust I met Paul Bayley, who is still director and had been a young curator at Tate Britain. He’d also done amazing things at the Cornerhouse in Manchester. We became and still are great friends.
From here I applied to the Royal Academy Schools, coincidentally at the same time as my brother Luke, who is also a painter. We became the first two brothers in the history of the RA to attend in the same year.
The schools really helped and supported my development by providing a dialogue with Norman Rosenthal, Brian Griffiths, Richard Kirwan, Eliza Bonham Carter, Vanessa Jackson, and the then keeper Maurice Cockrill. My time at the RA was an amazing, difficult, inspiring and life changing experience. There is no doubt that I would not be where I am today without access to the high level of tuition at the RA and the many possibilities provided by living and studying in London.
From the graduation show I was represented by my gallery CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, and this relationship is highly important to me as an artist. They continue to support and foster my growth, which is important for the evolution of my practice. Upon meeting Zavier Ellis (Director) there was an immediate connection and affinity. We have travelled, exhibited and done amazing things together, such as the recent In Memoriam show for our dear and sadly departed friend Francesca Lowe, which was an amazing success on all levels and an honour to be involved with.
'True to his own spirit', 2017
'You used to hold me', 2017
You recently had a two person show at CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, with the photographer Derek Ridgers, curated by Faye Dowling. Could you talk about the show and how it came about?
The show was a culmination of a lot of hard work from some very dedicated and supportive people. Artists often think about potential collaborations but more often than not they don’t happen. I’ve known Derek’s work for a long time and the whole thing started when I had a conversation with Zavier about it. I think Derek Ridgers is as important as Larry Clarke. I really immersed myself in Derek’s work before a solo show in New York in 2014, and in the meantime Faye Dowling included me in her publication ‘The Book of Black’. We spoke at length about our influences and the thinking that underpins our creative perspectives, and through these conversations we discovered we have a mutual admiration for Derek’s work. We all started thinking about how we could collaborate, met up and it immediately felt right. Although there are obvious differences in mine and Derek’s lives and backgrounds there are a lot of similarities in our intentions.
Tattoos often appear in your paintings; would you say that they are an integral part of your work?
Yes, for this collection I would, and not just tattoos as such. Some are clearly supposed to represent a tattoo. Other writings on the face are language based thoughts; or scribblings in the same way Cy Twombly might utilise the line as a mode to form a personal language that also acts on a purely aesthetic level. They are texts that allow for something to take place, for the painting and viewer to communicate by using the subtle conventions we know: line, form, composition and colour; as well as more blatant digging, scrawling and marking of graffiti and doodling. These aspects of nonchalant daubing are important to me – they reveal an attitude not just from the characters, but also from within the painting’s actual construction. This is also interlinked with opposing words / sentences, which sets up a distancing between me and the audience. Its open to debate whether I agree with these statements, or whether they are personal to me or the character depicted. I like the ambiguity.
SAM JACKSON & DEREK RIDGERS | RUN TO ME | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON2017
SAM JACKSON & DEREK RIDGERS | RUN TO ME | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON 2017
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?
Sparse and basic, although there is electricity. I am a strong believer in the premise that you can paint anywhere. I often work without any audio distraction. I have to be in the moment of making the work and I do not want to be emotionally driven by music rather than painting.
At the start of a new body of work I try to keep the area quite empty and rarely have other works to distract me. This changes as the paintings start to develop and an internal language takes form. I utilise the internet and / or a model.
I know what I want to achieve and then I start with the mind-set that there is one chance to attain this.
There will be times of struggle, doubt, anxiety, indecision and fear. The line, brushwork and application conveys this. I'm seeking an impossible honesty of some kind, a truth, and a blatant struggle to convey humanness and a presence. Within this period of working this would be akin to pure obsession, an incessant craving that is compulsive, like the anticipation of a drug.
I often work from very early in the morning, then stop and leave to go running or play with my son at around 11am. I will then resume and see how the work develops again. I try to work to some form of completion. I then go back over a period of time to add elements, as thoughts emerge and are explored, and naturally the work starts to take on a life of its own.
'Just A Taste', 2017
'Unconditional Love' 2017
'I Will Always Have Dignity', 2017
'Legacy', 2017
How do you go about naming your work?
Titles of work depend on each individual painting. I often seek to title my work in a poetic way. I do not wish to be overtly emotive in titling paintings, rather to capture the resonance and depth of the work in such a way that the audience might recall a memory, a lover, a relationship and their very own humanness. This can be emotive but equally controversial and transgressive.
Often words or language from the actual painting will be used within the title so you have a self-referential component in the work. Titles are very powerful, and they often add to the effect of the work; they continue to resonate over time. From conversations with collectors over the years I am very aware of the profound effect this work can have, and am privileged that I have been given the ability to connect with another human beings through the act of painting.
What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
The Cézanne show at the National Portrait Gallery is immensely moving. The touch and handling is always serious; I feel something when I look at this work. We start to see how much his influence resonates through the 20th century. The paint is often daubed, unravelling, natural and effortless. The paintings are vital and fluid with a heroic force to them and burning energy that is also timeless. I can see the cannon of art history within the painting and believe they acknowledge this yet still seem utterly contemporary.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
The "Run to Me" exhibition will be going to Frankfurt in April 2018 at Galerie Heike Strelow. The space will change the exhibition again, and new works are coming on very well which is always exciting. This will be linked with art fairs and a museum show at the Russel Coates in Dorset. This exhibition is to recognise 250 years of the Royal Academy. The show will bring together Royal Academicians such as Stanley Spencer, Edwin Landseer and John Millais in conjunction with contemporary artists including me, my brother Luke Jackson and Sophie Michael from Seventeen gallery. The exhibition celebrates the huge role of the RA over the last 250 years and its diversity of ademicians, students and cultural impact.
All images courtesy of the artist and CHARLIE SMITH LONDON
Publish Date: 23/11/17
Elephant Magazine / Robert Shore
"We like what’s next, not what’s past."
Our interview with editor of Elephant Magazine: Robert Shore
Hi Robert, thanks for taking the time to talk to us at Floorr. Could you tell us a bit about your background and how you became publisher and editor of Elephant Magazine?
I actually did a literary degree, and then wrote a doctorate about mid-seventeenth-century opera and puritan iconoclasm, or destruction of images. Perfect preparation to edit a highly visual magazine about contemporary art, you could say! But that was many moons ago, and afterwards I worked for a series of art publishers. I even served as the deputy editor of a rival magazine title at one time. But I don’t talk about that any more. It was a lot less fun.
Elephant Magazine has recently had a redesign, could you tell us about this and reasons behind the new look?
Occasionally you just feel the need to move on: Elephant has had four different sets of designers since its inception in 2009. Magazines need to maintain continuity but they also need constantly to offer something fresh.
Of course, you do the latter partly through the content – there are always great new artists to showcase; that’s always fresh – but you also need to reconsider the way you package it once in a while. So in the spring we visited a series of graphic design studios that are all producing great work and gave them a brief: “We’re a very visual magazine about contemporary visual culture. We like things that have only just been made or that are still being made. We like what’s next, not what’s past. We want to communicate a sense of spontaneity. We like bold graphic design, we like (and are willing to invest in) exciting paper stocks. We want to make an object as well as a publication. What does that add up to?” We really enjoyed the way Kellenberger-White responded to the challenge, not least because they said they should start their research at the zoo – which is how we got our new logo.
You have also written a book titled: “Beg, Steal and Borrow: Artists Against Originality”. Could you tell us about the book?
That began with something a broadsheet commentator wrote about the artists shortlisted for the 2014 Turner Prize. He said: “Looking at their work you get a sense that the old idea of making things that didn’t exist before from scratch has been pretty much abandoned.” That made me howl: what do you mean “making things that didn’t exist before from scratch”! It seemed such a bizarre and naive statement, and yet it also says a lot about an ideal of creativity that we hold on to in the teeth of all the evidence. In truth, it’s been a long time since ex nihilo creativity of that kind was really possible; for a very long time the world has been way too full of other people’s thoughts and words and things. Anyway, it made me want to investigate the history of copying, from Raphael and Dürer to Sturtevant and Sherrie Levine, and the idea of copyright. Which led me to Uber and the idea of “idle capacity”, and genetic inheritance, and all sorts of other things.
The whole experience made me realize quite forcefully that I’m an anti-Romantic. I’m much more interested in subtle, subversive interventions than grand authoring gestures. Happily there are others in the Elephant office who are big-time Romantics, so both artist approaches have their advocates at the magazine.
How do you differentiate yourself from other contemporary art magazines?
Principally by being hyper-visual and putting the artist’s voice first. We like big pictures, we like people who express bold ideas about how we live now. Federico Florian wrote a wonderful and quite personal piece for us a few issues ago about dating apps, their impact on the way we love in 2017 and artists’ responses to them. That was a model Elephant feature.
Every issue is themed: not all of the content follows that theme but overall it means each issue has a distinct flavour. The last issue was “Beyond Gender”, which looked at changing ideas about sexuality and how contemporary artists across the world envision them; the current one is “Perfect Me, Perfect You”, which focuses on the way the often oppressive notion of perfection impacts our lives, increasingly via social media.
We don’t do jargon and we’re not really interested in theory, though if someone can make theory sound vital and gripping rather than academic and stifling, we love it! It doesn’t happen very often.
“Beg, Steal and Borrow: Artists Against Originality”
“Beg, Steal and Borrow: Artists Against Originality”
What has been your biggest obstacle and greatest achievement as the publisher of Elephant magazine so far?
I only became publisher quite recently; I’ve been the editor much longer. One job is about content; the other is about the bottom line.
Anyway, launching our first independently published book, Nicola Hicks: Keep Dark, at the beginning of October was a proud moment. We’ve been doing books with Laurence King Publishing for ages but this is our first solo effort, and Nicola is a wonderful artist.
And launching the redesigned print magazine at a party at Parasol unit on 6 October was great too. Several hundred people came and stayed for hours.
And we’ve just launched a new website (elephant.art), which is very exciting and quite a challenge because, like a newborn baby, it needs constant feeding and endless attention. Will it grow up to realize all our ambitions for it?
What do you look for in an artist?
As a print magazine: work that looks good on paper. That may sound like a stupid answer, and perhaps it even is a stupid answer, but it’s a very useful filtering principle for us all the same. There’s a vast amount of really interesting work being created out there – across the globe – so it’s a relief that only a certain proportion translates really well into print. We do also like artists who are obviously engaging with the wider (non-art) world and its everyday concerns. Magazines thrive on punchy pull quotes.
Happily, our new website has given us an extra dimension so there are even more kinds of art – experiential art in particular – that we can satisfactorily engage with now.
What's the future for Elephant Magazine? Anything exciting lined up? Who is in your next issue? (publish date of the interview early November)
We want to protect and grow the print magazine, and in part we can do this best by extending our activities – not least by promoting ourselves more energetically online and by doing more events IRL.
The next issue of the print magazine, published in early December, takes comedy as its theme. It’s been very interesting putting that together and discovering that some of the artists who create work that seems most obviously and unambiguously funny resist being described in humorous terms while some of the hardest-hitting and most provocative contemporary makers – whose works seems designed to wipe that complacent smile off your face – have ambitions to be stand-up comedians.
All images courtesy of Elephant Magazine
Publish Date: 23/11/17
Jane Hayes Greenwood
"The works in Lead Me Not Into Temptation are definitely as much about the sensual pleasures relating to food and bodies and the joys of excess, as they are about guilt and shame."
Could you tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been a practising artist and where did you study?
I am an artist, Director of Block 336 and a Fine Art Tutor at City & Guilds of London Art School. It depends how you define 'practising' but I've been through the art education system starting with Foundation and finally completed a two year Fine Art MA at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2015.
You recently had a major solo show "Lead Me Not Into Temptation" at Block 336, with paintings, a large sculptural installation and video. This must have been a huge challenge, could you talk about the show and the thoughts behind the title?
This show was definitely my most ambitious so far. In broad terms, Lead Me Not Into Temptation was dealing with with ideas around consumption and desire. The installation took the Garden of Eden as a starting point and throughout the works that were displayed, food and bodies acted as motifs that allowed me to think about the different attitudes towards eating and sexuality and how they have changed through time.
I’m interested in the current obsession with food in popular culture, the relationships people have with food and the way it is talked about. The language used is often so moralising and inflected with judgements: "clean, dirty, good, bad, virtuous, sinful, naughty, nice” etc. and when I was trying to track the origins of this, the creation story in the bible story seemed to capture it all.
I also wanted to celebrate desire and pleasure as well as touching on certain societal issues. The works in Lead Me Not Into Temptation are definitely as much about the sensual pleasures relating to food and bodies and the joys of excess, as they are about guilt and shame.
Lead Me Not Into Temptation, Block 336 2017
Lead Me Not Into Temptation, Block 336 2017
Your paintings often depict sweets and fast food, could you tell us your ideas behind this? They also have a digital quality about them, almost like they have been embossed or rendered by a computer program.
I am interested in the more-real-than-real quality that objects modelled using computer software have. I have been looking at this kind of imagery from some time. Digitally modelled food is especially strange because it is so far away from what it depicts materially. This is similar in pornography and much of the mainstream eroticised imagery we see, where bodies, like food are cleaned up and controlled, with context largely erased, producing this weird simulacrum totally lacking in oozy mess.
As well as referencing these objects in the paintings, for the installation I produced the piece Love Bite which features a CGI animated apple that has a love heart shaped bite taken out of it. The installation was static apart from this. I felt it was important to have something moving that intended to entice people from behind the shop front style window and into the garden.
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day/studio routine? What is your studio like?
My studio is at Block 336. I tend to get in early, have coffee and tidy up. Weirdly I have to get things in order before I start. It’s always that way round. I never have energy at the end of the day to sort things out so I organise first thing and then mess it up throughout the day. Once I begin I find it hard to stop what ever I’m doing - I don’t sit down much. When I am in the studio I am working. I don’t do admin there. I do that at home where it’s more comfortable. I try to have fully concentrated days when I am in the studio so as to get the most out of them. Since my exhibition finished I have been going through the drawings I made when I was preparing for the show and I am starting to develop the one’s I didn’t have time to work with. I make loads of drawings – it’s where the work always starts for me.
After The Fall (left), Lead Me Not Into Temptation, Block 336 2017
Lead Me Not Into Temptation, Block 336 2017
The Shame, Block 336 2017
Love Bite, 2017
How do you go about titlng your work?
My titles are often quite tongue-in-cheek, they might be playful puns based on the subject of the work or come out of colloquial language. Other times, they might be more ambiguous and come out of my research. I’ll Tell You A Secret And You Won’t Be Hungry Anymore, comes from a line in one of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. They had an obsession with hunger and food runs through their stories. I’m interested in the power these tales have which often seems to be connected to a sense of home and the security of being fed.
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
I’m talking to a number of people at the moment about upcoming shows TBC.
All images courtesy of the artist and Block 336
Publish Date: 23/11/17