
El Anatsui. © Eric Sander
El Anatsui
Born in 1944
Lives & works in Ghana and Nigeria
Follow this artist
Private Collections : Clarks International Art Collection, Somerset, UK; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL, USA;
Public Collections : Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, USA ; Asele Institute, Nimo, Nigeria ; The British Museum, London, UK; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanagawa, Japan;
Collected by museums and foundations Centre Georges Pomipdou, Paris, France; De Young Museum, San Francisco, USA; Denver Art Museum, Colorado, USA; Embassy of Ghana, Copenhagen, Denmark; French Cultural Centre, Lagos, Nigeria; Tate Modern, London, UK;
Presentation of the artist
El Anatsui (b. 1944, Ghana) is an internationally acclaimed artist who transforms simple materials into complex assemblages that create distinctive visual impact. He uses resources typically discarded such as liquor bottle caps and cassava graters to create sculpture that defies categorization. His 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 can interrogate the history of colonialism and draw connections between consumption, waste, and the environment, but at the core is his unique formal language that distinguishes his practice. Anatsui is well-known for large scale sculpture 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 honor. Anatsui’s solo exhibition Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, was organized by the Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio (2012), and traveled 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 is due to travel to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Kunstmuseum Bern and Guggenheim Bilbao. Anatsui currently lives and works between Ghana and Nigeria.
Nationality : Ghana
In connection with
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg - South Africa
October Gallery, London - United Kingdom
Artskop3437 selection, Paris, Bordeaux - France
CV
Born in Ghana
Education
1969
Postgraduate Diploma, Art Education, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana
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1965
B.A. College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana
Solo exhibitions & presentations
2019
Triumphant Scale, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Doha, Qatar
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2019
Triumphant Scale, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
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2018
Meyina, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
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2017
Meyina, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
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2017
Proximately, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Wijnegem – Antwerp
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2017
Benchmarks: Topology of Generosity, Barakat Gallery, Seoul
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2017
Benchmarks: New Prints by El Anatsui, October Gallery, London, UK
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2016
El Anatsui: New Works, October Gallery, London, UK
CV
Group exhibitions & fairs
2019
In The Absence of Light: Gesture, Humor and Resistance in The Black Aesthetic, Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, USA
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2018
Transvangarde, October Gallery, London, UK
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2018
LOCAL/GLOBAL: A Group Exhibition, Madelyn Jordon Fine Art, Scarsdale
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2017
Three Dimensions, Acquavella Galleries, New York, USA
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2016
Marrakech Biennale 6; Not New Now, Marrakech, Morocco
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2015
Africa Africans, Museu Afro Brazil, São Paulo, Brazil
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2015
Embracing Space and Color: Art On & Off the Wall, Vero Beach Museum of Art, USA
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2015
Meet Me Halfway: Selections from the Anita Reiner Collection, Cristin Tierney Gallery, Florida, USA
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2015
Re:Purposed, The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, State Art Museum of Florida, Florida State University, Sarasota, Florida, USA
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2014
Mise En Scène, The School, Kinderhook, NY, USA
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2014
The Art of Our Time: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collections, Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain
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2013
245th Summer Exhibition, installation of sculpture on the façade of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK