“Yinka Shonibare MBE: Colonial Arrangements”

The historic rooms of Manhattan’s oldest house (which briefly served as field headquarters for both General George Washington and his British enemies) are being haunted these days by the unnerving presence of headless mannequins clothed in colorfully patterned 18th-century garb. They are the creation of British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, who specializes in deconstructing the history of colonialism through the prisms of race, gender and the cross-pollination of cultures—and who is also known for his signature use of Dutch Wax fabric, a vibrant Indonesian textile that was imported into Africa during the colonial era. Given the Morris-Jumel Mansion’s role in the American Revolution—which birthed one imperialist superpower from the loins of another—it makes the perfect stage for this lesson in how the past bedevils us still.