El Anatsui

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ABOUT THE ARTIST EL ANATSUI WAS BORN on February 4, 1944 in the Ewe town of Anyako and later went to high school in nearby Keta; both are located in Ghana’s Volta region. Anyako and Keta are surrounded on one side by the sea, on the other by a lagoon. Anatsui remembers people concerning themselves with fishing and harvesting salt most of the time and with weaving during the off season. Though the artist never practiced weaving, his father and brothers did so in their spare time. In addition, several of his brothers composed lyrics for music related to traditional drumming. He refers to these siblings as poets. This exposure to cloth patterns and poetry provided Anatsui’s earliest interaction with media that would later inspire much of his mature work. El Anatsui working in his studio at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, on a piece from the Broken Pots series, 1977. Though he was the youngest of the thirty-two children in his family, Anatsui discovered ways to highlight his individuality within a large group. His interest in art quickly set him apart from other students and members of his family. He recalls his earliest experience with art as an attempt to write letters on a chalk slate: “I would copy the bold capital letters on the door of the general manager’s office or the headmaster’s office. Because I did not understand these, I regarded each of them more as an image than a letter. These forms were intriguing and attractive.” Even from this early age he was appropriating and connecting forms in order to discover new ways of communicating. Later, in high school, he would win awards for his artistic endeavors during the annual speech and prize-giving days. Advisors began to encourage him to study fine art in college. Knowing the path he wanted to take, he let those around him know that he would be leaving and not following in the footsteps of other members in his family. Education Anatsui earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana in 1968. At the time, the institution was affiliated with the University of London, specifically Goldsmiths, and employed mostly European lecturers; thus, after having grown up in a British colony, he received his university training under the British model, which continued in Ghana following its independence in 1957. He studied drawing, painting, and sculpture in the Western tradition and had art history classes that did not include discussions of African art. He followed his undergraduate degree with a postgraduate diploma in art education and secured his first teaching position upon graduation as a lecturer in the Art Education Department, 4 EL ANATSUI EDUCATOR’S GUIDE
Specialist Training College, Winneba, Ghana (now University of Education, Winneba). In 1975, Anatsui applied for an open lecturer position in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. The following year, El Anatsui made his first trip outside of Ghana to live on the campus where he would teach for the next thirty-five years. Teaching and Artistic Practice El Anatsui started teaching in the Department of Fine and Applied Art at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1975. From the very beginning, his work was informed by various local, regional, and international histories and art practices. One can find Ghanaian and Nigerian influences in his work as well as myriad other African, European, Asian, and American references. He has gained this knowledge through an intimate investigation of his immediate environment coupled with decades of travel for research, residencies, workshops, and exhibitions. Anatsui has an edict that he, and those under his tutelage, turn to their respective environments for inspiration and materials. He urges them to look around and use “whatever the environment throws up.” In this, he is not only referring to organic materials—discarded bottle-tops, glass bottles, milk tin lids, market trays, old mortars used for grinding yams, and metal obituary plates may be used along with “natural resources” such as clay, driftwood, leaves, and logs. El Antsui making Ambivalent Hold,1983, Nsukka, Nigeria. Artistic media need not be expensive. Anatsui believes that an artist does not necessarily need to spend money on oil paints or chisels, but rather, he can free the creative process by turning to the humble everyday materials around us. However, this is not to say that simple materials render simple artworks. He has expressed the idea that when one has only humble materials to work with, the act of bringing them together in massive quantities creates the possibility for monumentality. For example, when making Signatures on the campus of the University of East Anglia during an artist-in-residency program, he piled up hundreds ABOUT THE ARTIST 5
Page 1: El Anatsui When I Last Wrote to You
Page 4 and 5: El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to Yo
Page 6 and 7: ABOUT THIS GUIDE THIS EL ANATSUI ED
Page 10 and 11: of logs into a rectangular pile. Th
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Page 14 and 15: When I last wrote to you . . . II 1
Page 16 and 17: God’s Omnipotence 1974 Wood, pain
Page 18 and 19: How can we explore the role of memo
Page 20 and 21: How can exploring brokenness help o
Page 22 and 23: Beads 1980 Ink on paper 10 ½ x 9 i
Page 24 and 25: Leopard’s Paw-prints and Other St
Page 26 and 27: How can found objects be transforme
Page 28 and 29: A shimmering piece could provide a
Page 32 and 33: Lady in Frenzy 1999 Metal, wood, fa
Page 34 and 35: Peak Project 1999 Tin, copper wire
Page 36 and 37: Open(ing) Market 2004 Tin, paper, w
Page 38 and 39: A luminous sculpture fashioned of a
Page 42 and 43: LESSON PLANS LESSON 1 Research Acti
Page 44 and 45: WORKSHEET Exploring El Anatsui’s
Page 46 and 47: LESSON 2: Creating a Found-object W
Page 48 and 49: DATE El ANATSUI’S LIFE WORLD EVEN
Page 50 and 51: ANNOTATED WEBOGRAPHY El Anatsui Ins
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El Anatsui

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