While in New York last month I was lucky enough to stumble into the Brooklyn Museum on their free first Saturday and had my eyes opened to an amazing artist El Anatsui. His exhibition "Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui" features over 30 works including 12 from his latest series of sculptural tapestries. These tapestries are woven out of metal liquor bottle caps that are deconstructed and then reassembled into towering textiles that can measure up to 30 feet long. Here are a few pictures that I took at the Brooklyn Museum, but in my attempt to avoid having people in the background they don't really show the overall grandness of the work. I've included some extras at the bottom of this post so you can do some El Anatsui exploration of your own.
2010
Detail, Red Block
Detail, Ozone Layer
2010
(Forgot to write down the title, sorry!)
an excerpt from the artist's biography at the Brooklyn Museum
"Born in Anyako, Ghana, in 1944, El Anatsui was raised by his uncle, a Presbyterian minister, who directed his education along European lines, instilling a fascination for subjects from poetry to Latin. At the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (1965-69), Anatsui focused of Western art, coming to historical African art only as an engaged outsider and treating his interest in the subject as an intellectual project.
Anatsui left Ghana in 1975 to teach art at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, where he engaged with a variety of local art forms and came into contact with a circle of Nigerian artists wrestling with both local and pan-African identity. His practice flourished in the 1980s and 1990s and his innovative use of materials and metaphors rooted in the history of Africa won respect in the contemporary African art world.
A decade ago, Anatsui began a new chapter of his career following his discovery of a sack of discarded liquor bottle caps. The works he created from these materials catapulted him onto the global contemporary art stage, winning particular praise at the 2007 Venice Biennale. In 2010, he retired from teaching to focus on his studio work."
**Special thanks to Kate Belski for being an amazing New York tour guide and friend! <3**
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