Cultural Life: Yinka Shonibare, artist
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Your support makes all the difference.Books: 'Flash of the Spirit' by Robert Farris Thompson is a book I am reading now. It's about African and African-American art and philosophy. I often express ideas in my work related to current affairs and on a weekly basis I tend to read 'The Economist' and the weekend 'Financial Times'. For 'Crash Willy, a piece on show in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, I was influenced by the credit crunch and drew from both non-fiction resources as well as fictional tales, such as 'Death of a Salesman'.
Music: Music on constant rotation in the studio is: Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind", Dizzee Rascal's "Dance wiv Me", anything by Gil Scott-Heron, Jay-Z, Hot Chip, M.I.A., Jill Scott or Fela Kuti (below), and I'm enjoying Nigerian singer Nneka's last album.
Visual Arts: Guest Projects is my Hackney studio-cum-gallery. The exhibition on now is Happy End and is curated by Yu-Chen Wang. The show continues to evolve every week through a series of installations and performances (until 11 July). There was an amazing performance by The Callas that was a cross between punk rock and Andy Warhol's Factory scene.
Television: My guilty pleasure used to be 'Desperate Housewives'. I was fascinated by it because it is a window into suburbia, a way of knowing and relating the most banal kind of existence. I was also touched by the resourcefulness of the people featured in the BBC's 'Welcome to Lagos'. They seemed to make a lot from the little that they had.
Yinka Shonibare MBE: Looking Up is at Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (Nmnm.mc) to 16 January 2011. He is also exhibiting as part of Nothing Is Forever at South London Gallery, London SE5 (Southlondongallery.org) to 5 September
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