Alternative history out of Africa

Yinka Shonibare arrived at his own exhibition opening dressed in an immaculately tailored suit. Behind him, trailing at a polite distance, followed two servants dressed in Victorian costume. One carried a tray of drinks, the other a chair. Shonibare is black. His two lackeys were white boys. You have to mention the colour of Shonibare's skin because heritage, history and cultural identity play a big part in his work. Employing two "art slaves" for the night clearly suggests that he wants to make a point about how he fits in. But why on earth dress up like that? Is he confused? Is he playing games? Is it part of his work?

Shonibare was born in London in 1962 of Nigerian parents but grew up in Lagos, later to return to London where he went to Byam Shaw and Goldsmiths art colleges. This rich mix feeds into his work, but Shonibare has always, it seems, had his tongue in his cheek when making any direct cultural or social references. His art (installation, paintings and photographs) explores history, both black and white, but it offers an alternative narrative, rather than a politically correct polemic.

Rather than tap into the more hip black culture of the recent decades as Chris Ofili (also of Nigerian descent) has done, Shonibare prefers to look further back. He's obsessed by Victorian England, and loves the idea of the artist as a dandy, which must explain his getup at his opening. Often he incorporates African cloth into tableaux that mimic the English notion of ownership, especially that of the landed classes. At the Camden Arts Centre we see this in a recent piece, Hound, which at first glance, looks like a swingeing attack on fox-hunting landowners. Three life-size gentlemen stride forward assertively preceded by four hounds that have cornered a terrified fox. Shonibare has messed around with the mannequins - they have no heads and they are wearing suits with African designs. What's going on here? Is he making a state-ment about class, or race, or taking a swipe at the English? Shonibare likes to keep you guessing. The "African" cloth is not as authentically African as you'd think. Dutch Wax, as this brightly patterned cloth is called, originally came from Indonesia and was later manufactured in Manchester via Holland (hence Dutch Wax), exported back to Africa, where it soon became the national dress. Shonibare's work is fodder for those who like their art well deconstructed.

But it is not, actually, as many-layered as it first seems. It's too quaint, too sentimental for that. His preference is for clich?d ideas of class and English identity and, above all, the aristocracy. The other installation here, Victorian Philanthropist's Parlour, is a faithful reconstruction of a Victorian interior (except for the patterned prints of black footballers on the upholstery and curtains). It doesn't really say anything about his own identity.

Some observers might see this as a parody of Victorian sentiment, but I reckon Shonibare is genuinely attached to that sentiment. He says he likes the Victorian period because they wore fancy clothes. He once made some mannequins based on Gainsborough's famous painting Mr & Mrs Andrews. They were headless. Why headless? Is that a political statement? "It's just what I do," he says. Shonibare is not vilifying the aristocracy but actively embracing it. He says he enjoys the trappings of the aristocracy, but seems confused between the aristocracy and the aspiring middle-classes - Mr & Mrs Andrews was a portrait of an 18th-century nouveau riche couple on their way up the greasy pole. (He also thinks Chris Eubank's neo-aristo airs are "subversive").

There is a sense that Shonibare likes messing about with an old idea of what England used to be. He once said there was no way that someone like him who had grown up in a middle-class household in Lagos would have known what authentic Africa was. The same is true of what he thinks of the British.

Yinka Shonibare, Camden Arts Centre until Sunday, 0207 435 2643.