El Anatsui

El Anatsui was born in Anyanko, Ghana in 1944. He is an internationally acclaimed artist who transforms simple materials into complex assemblages that create distinctive visual impact. Many of Anatsui’s sculptures are mutable in form, conceived to be so free and flexible that they can be shaped in any way and altered in appearance for each installation. Working with wood, clay, metal, and—most recently—the discarded metal caps of liquor bottles, Anatsui breaks with sculpture’s traditional adherence to forms of fixed shape while visually referencing the history of abstraction in African and European art.

The colorful and densely patterned fields of the works assembled from discarded liquor-bottle caps also trace a broader story of colonial and postcolonial economic and cultural exchange in Africa, told in the history of cast-off materials. The sculptures in wood and ceramics introduce ideas about the function of objects (their destruction, transformation, and regeneration) in everyday life, and the role of language in deciphering visual symbols.

El Anatsui received a BA and Postgraduate Diploma, Art Education, from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana (1969) and since 1975 has taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His works are in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Indianapolis Museum of Art; British Museum, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among many others. Major exhibitions of his work have appeared at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown (2011); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2010); National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka (2010); Rice University Art Gallery, Houston (2010); Venice Biennale (2007); and the Biennale of African Art, Senegal (2006). El Anatsui lives and works between Ghana and Nigeria.


SELECTED AWARDS

2016
Honorary Doctor of Arts, 365th Commencement Ceremony, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA), 2016 graduation ceremonies, The University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa

2015
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

2014
Elected Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA, USA

Elected Honorary Academician, British Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK

2013
Charles Wollaston Award, 245th Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK

2009
30th Anniversary Award, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., USA

Prince Claus Award, Lagos, Nigeria

2008
Visionaries Award, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY, USA

1999
Public’s Prize, 7th Triennial of small-scale sculpture, Stuttgart, Germany

1998
Bronze Award, 9th Triennial of Sculpture Osaka, Japan

1995
Kansai Telecasting Corporation Prize, 3rd Sculpture Triennale, Osaka, Japan

1990
Honorable Mention, 44th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy


SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2016
El Anatsui, Prince Claus Fund Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
El Anatsui: New Works, October Gallery, London, UK
El Anatsui: Five Decades, Carriageworks, Sydney Festival 2016, Sydney, Australia

2015
El Anatsui – Selected Works, October Gallery, London, UK
El Anatsui Of Dzi, Kunstbanken Hedmark, Kunstsenter, Hamar, Norway
El Anatsui: Five Decades, The School – Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY, USA

2014
New World, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Mount Holyoke, MA, USA
El Anatsui: Trains Of Thought, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY, USA
El Anatsui: Playing With Chance, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria
El Anatsui-Theory of Se, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong, China
El Anatsui, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2012 – 2015
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH, USA
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, Brooklyn Museum, Brookyln, NY, USA
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, Des Moines Art Center, IA, USA
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL, USA
Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

2012 – 2013
Broken Bridge II, The High Line, New York, NY, USA

2012
Pot of Wisdom, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Stitch in Time, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium

2011
El Anatsui, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA

2010 – 2012
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, organised by the Museum for African Art, New York, NY, USA
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, USA
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, USA
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, Denver Art Museum, CO, USA
El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote To You About Africa, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

2010 – 2011
A Fateful Journey, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan
A Fateful Journey, The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama
A Fateful Journey, Tsuruoka Art Forum, Yamagata, Japan
A Fateful Journey, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan

2010
Gli, Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
El Anatsui, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2009
El Anatsui, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO, USA
Process and Project, BRIC Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Chance Encounters: Seven Contemporary Artists from Africa, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India

2008
Earth Growing Roots, San Diego State University Art Gallery, San Diego, CA, USA
Zebra Crossing, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2006
Asi, David Krut Projects, New York, USA, in collaboration with October Gallery, London, UK
Nyekor, Spazio Rossana Orlandi, Milan, Italy, in collaboration with October Gallery, London, UK

2005
Danudo: Recent Sculptures of El Anatsui, Skoto Gallery in collaboration with Contemporary African Art Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2003 – 2008
El Anatsui: Gawu, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno, Wales, UK
El Anatsui: Gawu, Model Arts & Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland
El Anatsui: Gawu, Gallery Oldham, Oldham, Greater Manchester, UK
El Anatsui: Gawu, October Gallery, London, UK
El Anatsui: Gawu, Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, UK
El Anatsui: Gawu, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA
El Anatsui: Gawu, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
El Anatsui: Gawu, Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
El Anatsui: Gawu, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, USA
El Anatsui: Gawu, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., USA

2002
New Works, October Gallery, London, UK

1998
A Sculpted History of Africa, October Gallery, London, UK

1997
Hakpa, French Cultural Centre, Lagos, Nigeria

1995
El Anatsui: Sculptures and Reliefs, October Gallery, London, UK

1991
Old and New: An Exhibition of Sculpture in Assorted Wood, National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria

1987
Venovize: Ceramic Sculpture by El Anatsui, Faculty of Art and Design Gallery, Cornwall College, Redruth, UK
Pieces of Wood: An Exhibition of Mural Sculpture, The Franco-German Auditorium, Lagos, Nigeria

1982
Sculptures, Photographs, Drawings, Goethe-Institut, Lagos, Nigeria

1980
Wood Carvings, Cummington Community of Arts, Cummington, MA, USA

1979
Broken Pots: Sculpture by El Anatsui, British Council, Enugu, Nigeria
Broken Pots: Sculpture by El Anatsui, Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

1976
Wooden Wall Plaques, Asele Art Gallery, Nsukka, Nigeria


And many group exhibitions.



Sources: el-anatsui.com, art21.org, jackshainman.com