REVIew: temitayo shonibare at studio chapple
text katrina nzegwu
Installation view: Free Love (2024-25) by Temitayo Shonibare at Studio Chapple. Image courtesy of the artist and Studio Chapple. Photography by Studio Adamson.
Kneeling is uncommon in the gallery setting, yet ‘kneel’ is the instruction with which visitors are greeted upon entry to Studio Chapple’s current exhibition FREE LOVE. The culmination of a year in collaboration with the gallery’s curator Louis Chapple, Free Love is Nigerian artist Temitayo Shonibare’s first solo show in the United Kingdom – a carmine-hued interrogation of the interrelated themes of finance, religion and chauvinism.
An artist of Yoruba heritage, Shonibare frames her work by paying heed to the legacies of Nollywood, typified by high drama, recognisable archetypes, and a pleasantly gaudy kitschiness. The two-channel film ‘Koloba Koloba x Bandz A Make Her Dance MIXX$$$.mp4’ plays on iPads in opposite corners of the room. Both films feature footage of money spraying: one contextualises the act in the domain of Yoruba weddings whilst the other takes place in the strip club. The architecture of the space corresponds to the two ends of the spectrum Shonibare is foregrounding: the revered (the bride) and the denigrated (the sex worker). The found footage is superimposed upon 3D renderings of nominal female figures, speaking to the worldbuilding inherent to Shonibare’s practice.
Temitayo Shonibare, Koloba Koloba x Bandz A Make Her Dance MIXX$$$.mp4. Image courtesy of the artist and Studio Chapple. Photography by Studio Adamson.
The film is soundtracked by a piece played from speakers. Coming and going, the aural addition fuses and alters the traditional Fuji wedding song, and explicit trap track, that lend the video work its title. Gaps within the piece allow the fans to embody a sonic soundscape of their own; a visceral mechanic whirring, that speaks to the relentless clamour of societal pressures.
Temitayo Shonibare, Koloba Koloba x Bandz A Make Her Dance MIXX$$$.mp4. Image courtesy of the artist and Studio Chapple. Photography by Studio Adamson.
Once more we are called to kneel, explicitly via the vinyl lettering above, and surreptitiously by the fact of black knee pads placed below each iPad. The scale of the iPad screens bars watching from being a shared experience; the isolated viewer is prompted to confront their own positionality to submission, in relation to the rolling footage. The immersive sensibility inherent to the audiovisual experience carries over to the abstracted photograph ‘Self Portrait (In Prayer)’: a representation of the moment in Yoruba weddings, in which the bride’s mother of the bride kneels and prays for her. In turn, the bride kneels and prays for the groom, who kneels for no one. The resulting image captures the supplicatory foundations upon which patriarchal society is built, trickling down through generations and inherited traditions.
Temitayo Shonibare, Self-Portrait (In Prayer). Image courtesy of the artist and Studio Chapple. Photography by Studio Adamson.
The two films frame the installation ‘Who is in the garden?’, an acutely executed exercise in the power of comedy as commentary. Located in the centre of the gallery space, the piece constitutes a triad of large metal floor fans that tussle three fabricated dollar bills. Devoid of any attempt to stimulate the suspension of disbelief, the shonkily constructed mechanism speaks to the absurdity and crudity of money spraying, the act of showering newlyweds with bills. Consolidating not only gendered hierarchies but strata of wealth, perceptions of generosity, and comparative cosmopolitanism amongst guests, the act additionally serves as one of validation for those able to dispense with the largest sum of money. As the theatricality of the act is amped up, we are confronted with the ironic connection between the financial and the religious; the incongruity of the assignment of symbolic value via monetary worth.
Temitayo Shonibare, Who is in the garden?, detail. Image courtesy of the artist and Studio Chapple. Photography by Studio Adamson.
Many a Nigerian daughter will be familiar with the enactments of gender and status foregrounded by Shonibare’s film works. The fulfilment of such societal roles being further exemplified in the staged photograph ‘When I ask my mummy to tell me she loves me, she tells me to go and find a boyfriend’. In the image, we see the rear of the seated artist's head as her (real) mother brushes her wig. Her father overlooks the scene, reclining on a sofa to the left of the frame. Only detectable via a hand on his knee, he comes to function as a symbolic representation of patrimonial societal vigilance. Tying the image to Shonibare as a gesture of portraiture is the feature of the wig, a motif recurrent across her works.
Reverberations of the filmic continue with the cedar moth balls that line the skirting boards. Common to clothes cupboards in Nigeria, the aroma augments Shonibare’s construction of a purpose built environment, sandwiched between domestic reality and stage set. The theatrical is further endowed through the choice of wall colour – an ichor-like crimson that connotes luxury, exoticism and danger, pulling together the various elements and themes of the show.
Temitayo Shonibare, When I ask my mummy to tell me she loves me, she tells me to go and find a boyfriend. Image courtesy of the artist and Studio Chapple. Photography by Studio Adamson.
Though the use of art as masculinist critique is not uncommon, what diversifies Shonibare’s conversational contribution is her deployment of humour. The theatricality and comedy laced throughout the show provides an entry point, serving to challenge the typical impenetrability of conceptual exhibitions. FREE LOVE’s power rests in its oscillation between cultural arenas; Shonibare’s gift is the ability to confront and comfort in equal measure.