Leilah Babirye and Yinka Shonibare CBE RA at Frieze Sculpture

Leilah Babirye and Yinka Shonibare CBE RA at Frieze Sculpture

20 September - 29 October 2023
The Regent's Park, London, UK
/

Frieze Sculpture is now open. Free and open to the public, it features large new sculptures by Leilah Babirye and Yinka Shonibare CBE RA.

With a renewed vision and an array of historical and commissioned works, Frieze Sculpture 2023 brings together a wide array of inspiring artists from around the world. The exhibition is curated by independent curator and writer Fatoş Üstek and is presented by distinguished international galleries.

Leilah Babirye, 'Gyagenda', 2023

Leilah Babirye’s multidisciplinary practice transforms everyday materials into objects that address issues surrounding identity, sexuality and human rights. Composed of debris collected from the streets of New York, Babirye’s sculptures are woven, whittled, welded, burned and burnished.

For Frieze Sculpture, Babirye presents ‘Gyagenda’, her first bronze sculpture. The title is a Luganda idiom, which is a moniker often given to young people seeking to gather their chosen families in the wider world. Babirye moved to New York in 2015 from her native Uganda, receiving asylum in 2018. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, her experience of being exiled from her home country has inspired not only her artistic practice, but her prolific activism.

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, Material (SG) IV, 2023

The sculpture combines solidity and strength with lightness and flexibility. It is a commanding alternative to conventional monuments of personal power, instead exploring universal experience of historical change. Elegantly rippled and curved, its twisting form features Yinka Shonibare CBE RA’s signature hand-painted Dutch wax batik design. Batik was originally inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch, and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a signifier of African identity and independence and in Shonibare’s hands, the “perfect metaphor for multi-layered identities.”

‘Material (SG) IV’ is a striking four metre sculpture which represents the harnessing and freezing of wind in a moment of time and resembling a vast sheet of fabric billowing in the breeze.

Play
Pause
Yinka Shonibare CBE RA
View Artist Page

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA creates work that explores issues of race and class through the media of sculpture, painting, photography, film, tapestries and public works. His signature material is the...
Leilah Babirye
View Artist Page

Leilah Babirye

Leilah Babirye’s multidisciplinary practice transforms everyday materials into objects that address issues surrounding identity, sexuality and human rights. The artist fled her native Uganda to New York in 2015 after...
Previous
Next

    Receive our newsletter

    Receive information about exhibitions, artists and events.
    We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy. You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in any emails.
    Close

    Your favourites

    Create a list of works then send us an enquiry.
    No items found
    London New York