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"Last summer Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago curator Naomi Beckwith saw Yinka Shonibare\u2019s first Wind Sculpture on the cover of his catalogue Fabric-ation and immediately knew it was tailor-made for a public art project at the Josef Paul Kleihues\u2013designed institution. &amp;quot;The sculpture was beautiful and dynamic and I immediately marched into our chief curator Michael Darling\u2019s office and said: \u2018Plaza Project!\u2019&amp;quot; says Beckwith, referring to the esplanade in front of the museum\u2019s Indiana-limestone stairs, which previously hosted site-specific commissions by Mark Handforth, Martin Creed, and Amanda Ross-Ho.\n\nShonibare\u2019s three works for MCA, which are nearly 20 feet tall, follow on the heels of his 2010 sculpture in London\u2019s Trafalgar Square: a massive ship-in-a-bottle replica of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson\u2019s vessel used in the Battle of Trafalgar. As is the case with nearly all of the Nigerian-raised, London-based artist\u2019s installations of the past two decades, the sails were crafted from the same European-made textile that\u2019s been inspired by Indonesian batik for centuries. &amp;quot;He realized then that the fabrics could be shapes in and of themselves,&amp;quot; Beckwith says.\n\nPinterestFacebookNelson\u2019s Ship in a Bottle, Trafalgar Square, London, 2010.\n\n Photo courtesy of James Cohan Gallery\n\nBut instead of sourcing his materials for the Wind Sculptures from textiles found in the markets of London\u2019s East End, Shonibare and his team devised the sculptures\u2019 patterns from scratch. Through this process, the monument-size works\u2014built from a steel armature coated with a painted fiberglass resin cast\u2014give the appearance of paper-thin fabrics billowing in the wind. &amp;quot;Each pattern was hand-painted, layer by layer, imitating the exact way batik fabrics are printed,&amp;quot; says Beckwith. &amp;quot;Shonibare also played with shapes and ultimately landed on the forms that exist now\u2014like the fabrics are pinned to the ground at one point and are dancing and snapping in the wind. They just look incredible against the backdrop of the MCA and perfectly offset the rational gray tones of the museum\u2019s cladding.&amp;quot;\n\nIn addition to providing a pleasing aesthetic, the works also further the artist\u2019s dialogue on &amp;quot;difference, cultural fluidity, cultural markers, new authenticities,&amp;quot; explains Beckwith. &amp;quot;The very things that make up the fabric of a city like Chicago.&amp;quot;\n\nThrough October 31, 2014, at MCA Chicago; mcachicago.org\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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