Streetstyle

Mosey on down (or up or across) to Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art to check out artworks of great intent, including some that may make you twitter with excitement, blush or even gush… 

There are plenty of fabulous things to tickle your inner creativity and quell your cultural conscience at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) at Sydney’s Circular Quay. The current main attraction is a collection of sculptures, paintings, photography and installation art from one of Britain’s most daring creative artists, Yinka Shonibare, MBE. Shonibare was born in England in 1962 and brought up in Nigeria but has returned to London where his professional career excelled. A 2004 Turner Prize nominee, Shonibare has piqued international attention for his examinations of sexuality, race, class and humanity through mixed media installation. 

Shonibare’s subversive offering is a series of headless mannequins arranged in various scenes. Most eye-catching are the three-dimensional embodiments of paintings by famous artists dressed in ostentatious African-print fabrics, a key element in his work. It’s out there stuff but certainly gratifying for an uninitiated audience. 

Initial impact and intent comes from the first mannequin that greets you – a headless woman on a swing hung from a tree bough covered in ivy. She is resplendent in her ball gown and has irreverently flung off a shoe that hangs suspended above her. Gwen Stefani or Alice in Wonderland would be proud if not a little jealous. Meanwhile, the lines of culture and race blur.

The contents of the next room could promote awkward questions if you have children with you. Five groupings of mannequins in various sexual positions assault the senses. While the carnal positions may make you blush slightly, the mannequins are all immaculately dressed and you may infact learn another way to use a parasol. Once again the juxtaposition of conventional humanity with sexuality and gender is curiously represented.

Mannequins aren’t the only items on display in this exhibition. There is a short film of two beautiful ballerinas, Odile and Odette, dressed in the most stunning tutus of orange, pink, purple, aqua and blue. Shonibare’s utilisation of a professional theatre dresser in his work is evident in throughout the exhibition and certainly resonates here. The film shows the dancers standing opposite each other on either side of a large and empty frame and they dance exactly the same routine to give the illusion of one ballerina dancing in front of a mirror. Their bodies are masterpieces in themselves and the tutus are mesmerising. There is no musical accompaniment, only the staccato sound of the point slippers tapping the floor and the laboured breathing of the dancers as the routine becomes more complex. It’s ambitious artistic expression at work, which has great visual impact, but seems to be a divergent coda to the other work at hand.

There are also two photographic exhibits, a series of paintings and a video interview with the artist about his history and inspiration.