1.

Early Life & Career

El Anatsui was born in Ghana in 1944, the son of a master weaver of Kente cloth. As Ghana gained independence in 1957, El Anatsui witnessed the country’s transition from British colonial rule to independence under Kwame Nkrumah.

Anatsui studied art at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, renowned for being one of the best art schools in Ghana. While the university’s curriculum continued to teach a Western-centric approach to art, Anatsui developed his own artistic interests in African art, writing his thesis on the regalia worn by local chieftains. After graduating, Anatsui began teaching at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he remained as a Professor for over four decades.

To this day, Anatsui still has a studio in Nsukka, Nigeria as well as one in Tema, Ghana. He goes between Nigeria and Ghana both physically and artistically. Early in his tenure at the University of Nigeria, Anatsui started to incorporate indigenous motifs and techniques into his work from both of these countries. He was part of the Nsukka group of artists, poets and writers who found inspiration in the Igbo tradition of uli design and the Nigerian proto-writing system of nsibidi. Anatsui also incorporated Ghanaian motifs in his work, such as indigenous adinkra symbols. Along with his fellow members of the Nsukka group, Anatsui revived these ancient practices and assimilated them into works of contemporary art.

Mammoth Crowd Series I, from an early body of wooden plank hangings, is a superb example. Uli and nsibidi symbols have been rendered into the wood with a power saw and blow torch, offering a reminder of an oppressive and destructive colonial past.  

Interested in selling in our Modern & Contemporary African Art auction? Submit your artworks using our online form or contact helene.love-allotey@bonhams.com for a free and confidential valuation of your collection.

2.

Late 80s/90s Wooden Panels & Sculptures

By the end of the 1970s, Anatsui was an established figure in Nigeria and he began travelling and working abroad, gradually building an international reputation. In 1980, as part of his residency at the Cummington Community of the Arts in Massachusetts, he had his first solo exhibition in the US, entitled Wood Carvings. In 1985, his wood reliefs garnered attention at the inaugural AKA Circle of Exhibiting Artists exhibition in Enugu and Lagos, which he then exhibited in the UK and Europe, North America and Japan.

El Anatsui’s wooden panel works, such as Spirits and Nativity Concept, consist of slats of wood that the artist has inscribed with different symbols by sawing and burning the wood. The artist often brings together different coloured planks of wood, stretching his designs across the individual pieces, as is perfectly exemplified in Nativity Concept.

Anatsui’s technique involved using a chainsaw and an oxyacetylene torch. He developed this process during his residency at Cummington Community of the Arts, where he started using a chainsaw to add his designs to the wood which he would then blacken and burn back with the oxyacetylene torch. These cuts and burns in the wood become a reflection of the violence enacted upon African countries by European colonial power. Anatsui also adds paint to many of these works, as is seen in On Grandma’s Cloth.

During the 1990s, Anatsui started shifting his focus from reliefs to freestanding sculptures. He produced a number of figurative works, including Al Haji and Talakawa, pieces that demonstrates key characteristics of Anatsui’s practice. He consciously chooses materials that have their own story, and this sculpture takes wood that was originally used for palm oil extraction, and transforms it with carvings and incisions. Anatsui’s work typically holds multiple meanings, and the title Al Haji is deliberately ambiguous as it’s based on the Arabic word for pilgrimage, which contains both reverential and derogatory connotations.

3.

Bottle-top Wall Installations

In recent years, Anatsui has become best known for his large installations made from bottle tops. His fascination with this unusual medium began in 1999, when he stumbled across a rubbish bag of metal caps from African liquor bottles, and was inspired by the history of these seemingly insignificant objects. When Europeans first came to Africa, they brought bottles of rum to trade, and so these discarded bottle tops point to the relationship between the two continents.

These bottle tops also bring to light our treatment of waste and the environment. Anatsui repurposes and recycles the discarded pieces of metal, transforming them into his shimmering sculptures. He creates these fabric-like wall sculptures from huge quantities of bottle tops, cutting them into strips and sewing them together with copper wire, in a technique reminiscent of Kente cloth weaving.

These works continue to take on new forms. Anatsui has said, “I don’t believe in artworks being things that are fixed,” and he does not dictate how his works should be hung. The creative process continues with each installation, and the work takes on a different form each time it occupies a new space.

His bottle-top works can be vast, and several have dominated the exteriors of historical buildings, such as those hung on the Palazzo Fortuny and the Arsenale for the 2007 Venice Biennale, and TSIATSIA – searching for connection, which covered the façade of the Royal Academy in 2013.

4.

Upcoming Tate Installation and Other Major Exhibitions

Anatsui’s works have been exhibited in major institutions across the world, from the British Museum in London to the Met in New York. In February, Tate Modern announced that the artist will create their next Turbine Hall installation—it will be on display from 10 October to 14 April 2024. Shortly following this announcement, Anatsui was included in the TIME100: The Most Influential People of 2023 by Time Magazine, USA for the impact he has had through his art.

These are just the latest accolades in a garlanded international career. Anatsui was honoured with the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art 30th Anniversary Award in 2009, which was followed by a solo show that travelled throughout the US in 2012. In 2015, he was invited to exhibit for a second time at the Venice Biennale, where he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Two years later, he received the prestigious Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, and in 2019 the Haus der Kunst in Munich hosted a retrospective.