Akin Oladimeji, July 2020 

Two doors down Anglo-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, also represented by the Friedman gallery, has a sculpture of Lady Justice, based on Pomeroy’s version, on display in the gallery’s Viewing Room. The powerful work is called Justice for All. Let me tell you about justice. I remember as a child I saw a book that showed a bobby on the beat in a traditional helmet and the caption: the policeman is your friend. Then as I grew up in Nigeria where bribes were routinely given to police officers, where the agents of social control often killed civilians and blamed it on an ‘accidental discharge’ of their weapons, police brutality was the norm and corrupt politicians were often lauded, I gained a cynical view of the concept. As a man in my twenties I learnt not to walk around with a hoody or do anything that would lead to unjust treatment at the hands of the law knowing that I’m guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of a racist officer.

​

The violence that has led to the Black Lives Matter movement has meant the word ‘justice’ is now being picked up, shaken and examined from every angle and being interpreted by a number of artists. And so we come to Shonibare whose use of Dutch and Indonesian fabrics used in African traditional clothes to denote the slipperiness of cultural identity is a major trope. It has been derided by some as an embodiment of the idea in a way that’s too easily absorbed. Here it effectively emphasises the fact that justice cuts across cultures while the use of a globe for the statue’s head points to the fact the concept is a worldwide one. The golden sword in one outstretched arm points to retribution for wrongdoers and the scales in the other hand denote equal treatment. Installing the work in a locked room which the audience can only view from the street distances us from it, perhaps reminding us we are far from achieving fairness.