Yinka Shonibare MBE: Girl Ballerina (2007)
Photo © Yinka Shonibare MBE / Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, NY
and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Most people instantly recognise Degas's sculpture of The Little Dancer Aged-Fourteen (1880-81) with her hands held politely (somewhat nervously) behind her back as if tied; eyes closed and face lifted as though waiting to receive an unwelcome kiss from an ardent male admirer.
Originally sculpted in wax and fitted with a bodice, a tutu, and a pair of ballet shoes - not to mention a wig of real human hair tied with a ribbon - la petite danseuse was first cast in bronze in 1922, four years after the artist's death.
Since then, the numerous reproductions displayed in museums and galleries around the world have enchanted - or troubled, depending upon your perspective - generations of viewers and she has become an established figure not only in the image-repertoire of modern cultural history, but also in the popular and pornographic imagination; everyone loves her and Degas makes back stage johnnies of us all complicit in child prostitution, paedophilia and art.
This pervy aspect of the sculpture has long been recognised. Indeed, when first shown in Paris at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition, the majority of critics were outraged; one described the Little Dancer as a fleur du mal who blossomed with precocious depravity and had a face which betrayed a wicked character, marked by the hateful promise of every vice; a promise that doubtless many of these hypocrites wished to hold her to.
Certainly neither they nor anyone since has ever done much to free, as it were, the Little Dancer from the sexually objectifying gaze of the knowing male voyeur or would-be rapist, or to provide her with the means by which she might defend herself and accomplish her own liberty. Until, that is, two London-based artists, Ryan Gander and Yinka Shonibare MBE, decided to revisit and rework this piece each in a very wonderful manner by assigning independent and rebellious agency to the young girl.
In Gander's work Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame Or Absinth blurs my thoughts, I think we should be moving on (2009), Degas's dancer has abandoned her plinth and escaped any glass display case that might have previously been used to imprison her and made her way to the window which she peers out of standing on tiptoes. She is thus, in the words of Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery, "transformed from an object of desire into a figure enacting its own desires to explore the surrounding world".
In the earlier I don't blame you, or, When we made love you used to cry and I love you like the stars above and I'll love you 'til I die (2008), his bronze ballerina is seen taking a crafty cigarette break, having again stepped down from the pedestal on which in her earlier incarnation she stood for over eighty years, bored out of her mind.
As much as I like these pieces by Gander, I have to express a preference ultimately for Shonibare's work entitled Girl Ballerina (2007), pictured above. Life-sized, as opposed to Degas's dancer who was diminished in stature, and looking tanned of skin and colourful of dress, there are two startling aspects to the sculpture.
Most immediately noticeable is the fact that she's headless, which, speaking from an acephalic philosophical perspective informed by Georges Bataille, is always a good sign; a girl who has escaped from her head finds herself unaware of prohibition and she makes others laugh with revolutionary joy due to the fact that she perfectly combines innocence with criminal irresponsibility.
This brings us to the second startling aspect; the fact that she holds a large gun behind her back and has her finger on the trigger - ready to shoot anyone who would violate her sovereignty or think of her as easy prey. Shonibare's ballerina does not passively conform to male desire or acquiesce in her own subordination; she is not a sexual naif, but more of a sex pistol: bang, bang she'll shoot you down ...
Notes:
The above works by Ryan Gander and Yinka Shonibare MBE can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 7 September 2014).
The quotation from Ralph Rugoff is taken from his introductory essay to the book that accompanies the exhibition, The Human Factor, (Hayward Publishing, 2014), p. 12.
Since then, the numerous reproductions displayed in museums and galleries around the world have enchanted - or troubled, depending upon your perspective - generations of viewers and she has become an established figure not only in the image-repertoire of modern cultural history, but also in the popular and pornographic imagination; everyone loves her and Degas makes back stage johnnies of us all complicit in child prostitution, paedophilia and art.
This pervy aspect of the sculpture has long been recognised. Indeed, when first shown in Paris at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition, the majority of critics were outraged; one described the Little Dancer as a fleur du mal who blossomed with precocious depravity and had a face which betrayed a wicked character, marked by the hateful promise of every vice; a promise that doubtless many of these hypocrites wished to hold her to.
Certainly neither they nor anyone since has ever done much to free, as it were, the Little Dancer from the sexually objectifying gaze of the knowing male voyeur or would-be rapist, or to provide her with the means by which she might defend herself and accomplish her own liberty. Until, that is, two London-based artists, Ryan Gander and Yinka Shonibare MBE, decided to revisit and rework this piece each in a very wonderful manner by assigning independent and rebellious agency to the young girl.
In Gander's work Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame Or Absinth blurs my thoughts, I think we should be moving on (2009), Degas's dancer has abandoned her plinth and escaped any glass display case that might have previously been used to imprison her and made her way to the window which she peers out of standing on tiptoes. She is thus, in the words of Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery, "transformed from an object of desire into a figure enacting its own desires to explore the surrounding world".
In the earlier I don't blame you, or, When we made love you used to cry and I love you like the stars above and I'll love you 'til I die (2008), his bronze ballerina is seen taking a crafty cigarette break, having again stepped down from the pedestal on which in her earlier incarnation she stood for over eighty years, bored out of her mind.
As much as I like these pieces by Gander, I have to express a preference ultimately for Shonibare's work entitled Girl Ballerina (2007), pictured above. Life-sized, as opposed to Degas's dancer who was diminished in stature, and looking tanned of skin and colourful of dress, there are two startling aspects to the sculpture.
Most immediately noticeable is the fact that she's headless, which, speaking from an acephalic philosophical perspective informed by Georges Bataille, is always a good sign; a girl who has escaped from her head finds herself unaware of prohibition and she makes others laugh with revolutionary joy due to the fact that she perfectly combines innocence with criminal irresponsibility.
This brings us to the second startling aspect; the fact that she holds a large gun behind her back and has her finger on the trigger - ready to shoot anyone who would violate her sovereignty or think of her as easy prey. Shonibare's ballerina does not passively conform to male desire or acquiesce in her own subordination; she is not a sexual naif, but more of a sex pistol: bang, bang she'll shoot you down ...
Notes:
The above works by Ryan Gander and Yinka Shonibare MBE can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 7 September 2014).
The quotation from Ralph Rugoff is taken from his introductory essay to the book that accompanies the exhibition, The Human Factor, (Hayward Publishing, 2014), p. 12.
