VIDEO REACTION PAPER

Video Reaction Paper

Video Reaction Paper

El Anatsui is one of the leading artists of our time. Emerging from the vibrant post-independence art movements of 1960s and 70s West Africa, he has gone on to receive widespread international acclaim for his sculptural experiments with media, form and tradition. Throughout a distinguished forty-year career as both sculptor and teacher - he was Professor of Sculpture and Departmental Head at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka - El Anatsui has addressed a vast range of social, political and historical concerns, and embraced an equally diverse range of media and processes.

Using anything from chainsaws and welding torches to this intricate and meditative 'sewing' process, he has shaped materials ranging from cassava graters and railway sleepers to driftwood, iron nails and obituary notice printing plates etc. Since 1993 he has worked with the October Gallery, London. His sculptures have been collected by major international museums, from the British Museum to the Centre Pompidou, the de Young Museum, San Francisco, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, the museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, and many other prestigious institutions besides, El Anatsui is today justly recognised as one of the most original and compelling contemporary artists of the day.

El Anatsui's series of installations have provoked a frenzy of international attention in recent years, with institutions and audiences clamouring for more of these sumptuous, mesmerising works made from thousands of aluminium bottle tops and forming magnificent wall sculptures.

El Anatsui's work caused something of a sensation when, during the Venice Biennale, in 2007, he transformed the facade of the Palazzo Fortuny by draping it in another of his shimmering wall sculptures. He was also the winner of the New York Museum of Arts and Design's Visionaries 2008 award. At the Dubai Art Fair, 2010, October Gallery and El Anatsui presented his dazzling work; ...