Wednesday 18 August 2010

Nelson's Ship in a Bottle - Yinka Shonibare

As a child, did you have one too, a ship in a bottle? I'd forgotten mine until now and how I used to marvel at its impossible form. How did it get to sail on its painted sea? Yinka Shonibare has tapped into all that childhood wonderment with his sculpture for Trafalgar Square, which charms rather than challenges. It's possibly the most apposite and playful site specific work to have yet occupied the plinth. The sails, set as for the battle of Trafalgar, are printed in Shonibare's trademark African fabrics, a decorative reminder of our colonial past and multicultural present.  Read Adrian Searle's excellent review for The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/24/fourth-plinth-yinka-shonibare-trafalgar-square

See also:
http://splitbyscene.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-and-other-day-11.html

Art teachers all over the country will be preparing return-to-school bottling projects - and not in the food technology rooms. Do it yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWBdQIHcZr0
http://www.instructables.com/id/Recycle-Old-Light-Bulb-1/
http://www.videojug.com/webvideo/how-to-get-a-ship-in-a-bottle