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Selected Artworks

Aluminium, copper wire and nylon string
Work: 360 x 315 cm
Aluminium, copper wire and nylon string
Work: 310 x 893 cm
Unavailable
Bottle caps
280 x 260cm
Unavailable
Bottle caps and printing plates
309 x 323cm
Unavailable
Bottle caps
Work: 260 x 460 cm
Unavailable
Painted Wood
Work: 193 x 420 x 10 cm
ALUMINUM, COPPER WIRE, AND NYLON STRING
Work: 363 x 360 cm
Painted wood
Work: 153 x 208 cm
Unavailable
Aluminum, copper wire, and nylon string
Work: 415 x 657 cm

About

El Anatsui image

El Anatsui (b. 1944, Ghana) is an internationally acclaimed artist who transforms simple materials into complex assemblages that create distinctive visual impact. Anatsui uses resources typically discarded such as liquor bottle caps and cassava graters to create sculptures that defy categorisation. Anatsui’s use of these materials reflects his interest in reuse, transformation, and an intrinsic desire to connect to his continent while transcending the limitations of place. His work interrogates the history of colonialism and draws connections between consumption, waste and the environment. But at the core of Anatsui’s work is his unique formal language that distinguishes his practice.

Anatsui is well-known for large scale sculptures composed of thousands of folded and crumpled pieces of metal sourced from local alcohol recycling stations and bound together with copper wire. These intricate works, which can grow to be massive in scale, are both luminous and weighty, meticulously fabricated yet malleable. He leaves the installations open and encourages the works to take different forms every time they are installed.

In 2015, Anatsui was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, the Venice Biennale’s highest honour. Anatsui’s solo exhibition Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, was organized by the Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio (2012), and travelled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2013); then to the Bass Museum of Art in Miami, Florida (2014); and concluded at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California (2015). In 2019, El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, a major career survey curated by Okwui Enwezor, opened at Haus der Kunst and travelled to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Kunstmuseum Bern and Guggenheim Bilbao in 2020.

Anatsui currently lives and works between Ghana and Nigeria. 

Download full CV

Exhibitions

London Gallery
02 June - 28 June 2023
Cape Town Gallery
24 March - 02 June 2022

Press & News

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