He may be the next big thing to hit Los Angeles, but few will even recognize the native Ghanaian when he steps onto the UCLA campus this weekend to discuss his upcoming exhibition at the Fowler Museum.
Aficionados of the African art world, however, toss the name El Anatsui into conversation as casually as others do Britney, Brad or Angelina. Recently exhibiting in London, Paris and New York, the Nigerian-based artist has exploded onto the international art scene with a tour de force comparable to any Hollywood star.
“El Anatsui: Gawu,” previously at the Samuel P. Harn Museum in Gainesville, Fla., arrives at the Fowler Museum on Sunday for Anatsui’s West Coast solo museum debut. He will join art curator Amada Cruz in conversation on Saturday at 5 p.m. The exhibition will run until Aug. 26.
Anatsui flew into Los Angeles from Nigeria on Monday to begin directing the setup of his large works and installations. His pieces have arrived in several parts that must be sewn together on site.
“It’s really a tedious, laborious process, so I certainly have to employ the services of several men,” Anatsui said. “I think on the last count there were 18 of them. They are all young men living around my studio in Nigeria. Incidentally, none of them have any intention of studying fine arts.”
Born in 1944 in Anyako, Ghana, Anatsui works from his studio in Nigeria and is a professor of sculpture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he has lectured since 1975. He may retire from teaching within the next year or two, however, to devote more time to sculpting.
Anatsui’s work is in numerous public and private collections including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nigeria National Art Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution.
However, his arrival at the Fowler Museum coincides with the peak of his long career.
While the Fowler Museum has for many years exhibited contemporary African art alongside traditional African art, Marla Berns, the museum’s director, anticipates a greater hype for this exhibit because it features an artist who is particularly hot at the moment.
“The timing of the exhibition recognizes a mid-career artist’s rise in recognition in the international art world,” Berns said. “But it’s not a radical departure for the Fowler because it fits in so well with our mission. El Anatsui’s work conceptually relates to his artistic legacy and the history of art in his own Ghana, as well as being (at the vanguard) at the same time.”
“El Anatsui: Gawu” will feature eight recent, large-scale works crafted from discarded materials such as liquor bottle caps and galvanized metal sheets.
Anatsui said he did not make a conscious effort to use these materials from his local environment.
“All of them were found by accident; the bottle caps, the milk caps ““ they were all from my town,” he said. “I see them and they strike an odd chord in you and you collect them. Most of the time you keep them for a very long time before they generate some idea. It could be a very long time ““ one or two years.”
Stacey Abarbanel, director of marketing and communications at the Fowler Museum, is quick to point out that these works shouldn’t be thought of as a simple mishmash of recycled materials.
“The pieces don’t look like they’re recycled materials at first glance,” Abarbanel said. “(Anatsui) does not use the term “˜recycling.’ He is an artist that is taking everyday objects and completely transforming them into something else.”
One example is “Crumbling Wall” (2000), an 18-by-13 foot installation resembling the craggy face of a granite cliff. Anatsui combines steel sheets from cassava graters to create the piece; cassava graters are machines used to make gari, a fermented, gelatinized flour and a staple food in Nigeria and Ghana.
Another example is “Hovor” (2003), a wall-hung fabric constructed from a patchwork of innumerable aluminum liquor-bottle caps. The intricate patterns on the patchwork’s surface highlight the piece’s ritual aura, which is derived from its resemblance to kente, a ceremonial cloth used by the Ewe people of Ghana. When divided into its two syllables, the word “Gawu” alludes to metal and a cloak, respectively.
The materials that Anatsui uses in the piece reference West Africa’s long contact with the West, particularly the consumer trade and import of distilled liquors into Nigeria.
It also suggests that with consumer society comes a lot of waste.
“You have these pieces of metal that can’t be recycled with glass that would otherwise become the stuff of scrap heaps,” Berns said. “(Anatsui) sees his project as one of rescuing what would otherwise be stuff cluttering the environment and making it into something that’s fantastic and beautiful.”