Documented artwork / monumental public sculpture
Wind Sculpture VII
Credit as documented: Yinka Shonibare
Wind Sculpture VII fixes the billowing shape of cloth outside the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington. Its painted pattern invokes the movement of textiles and people through trade and colonial histories. The museum identifies this 2016 sculpture as its distinctive gold-leaf version and first permanent exterior installation. A steel armature supports the fiberglass resin body. The apparent fabric therefore depends on a rigid structure, while its patterned surface links the object to Shonibare's broader examination of cultural exchange.
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At a glance
- Year / version
- 2016
- Materials
- steel armature, hand-painted fiberglass resin cast, gold leaf
- Documented setting
- outdoor
- Dimensions
- Collection: approximately 609.6 × 304.8 cm (H × W). Release: 20 ft high × 10 ft 6 in. wide; 899 lb.
- Dimensions apply to
- Smithsonian collection and 2016 press-release measurements of its gold-leaf example disagree on width; neither is silently converted into the other.
- Availability
- Unconfirmed
Places & versions
Installation history
Historical presentations. A past installation does not establish the current location or suitability for a new site.
Installation announced for December 3, 2016; collection record identifies outdoor display
National Museum of African Art entrance, Washington, District of Columbia
Materials and construction
The museum reports a roughly seven-inch ground contact and says seven people spent a month painting and gilding the surface. Its collection gives a ten-foot width, whereas the installation release gives ten feet six inches; that discrepancy remains explicit.
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Sources
- www.si.edu ↗ · Checked 2026-10-17
- www.si.edu ↗ · Checked 2026-10-17