A work by El Anatsui
El Anatsui was born in Ghana and currently lives in Nigeria, where he maintains his studio. An alumnus of the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, Anatsui holds a BA (Art) as well as a post-graduate diploma in Art and Education (1969). For many years he was Professor of Sculpture and, latterly, Departmental Head at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
As both a sculptor and teacher, Anatsui’s career has spanned more than forty years. Best known for his repurposing of alcohol bottle caps into large-scale hanging installations, Anatsui’s art weaves together the discarded materials of production, trade, and consumption made prevalent in Africa during the colonial expansion of Europe and the Americas.
Anatsui’s work breaks away from the traditional cast of sculptural practice to invoke a multi-layered, sensory re-imagining of our material world. Reviewing the first major retrospective of his work, El Anatsui: When I last wrote to You about Africa, at the Royal Ontario Museum (2010), art historian Terry Smith marvelled, “In his wall hangings … El Anatsui has accomplished one of the very few genuine breakthroughs in contemporary art anywhere in the world today.”
In 2015 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 56th Venice Biennale.
A work by El Anatsui
El Anatsui was born in Ghana and currently lives in Nigeria, where he maintains his studio. An alumnus of the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, Anatsui holds a BA (Art) as well as a post-graduate diploma in Art and Education (1969). For many years he was Professor of Sculpture and, latterly, Departmental Head at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
As both a sculptor and teacher, Anatsui’s career has spanned more than forty years. Best known for his repurposing of alcohol bottle caps into large-scale hanging installations, Anatsui’s art weaves together the discarded materials of production, trade, and consumption made prevalent in Africa during the colonial expansion of Europe and the Americas.
Anatsui’s work breaks away from the traditional cast of sculptural practice to invoke a multi-layered, sensory re-imagining of our material world. Reviewing the first major retrospective of his work, El Anatsui: When I last wrote to You about Africa, at the Royal Ontario Museum (2010), art historian Terry Smith marvelled, “In his wall hangings … El Anatsui has accomplished one of the very few genuine breakthroughs in contemporary art anywhere in the world today.”
In 2015 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 56th Venice Biennale.