It is one of the great origin stories of contemporary art, a flash of instinct that would revolutionize the field. In 1998, Anatsui was driving around the Nigerian city of Nsukka and noticed a bag of aluminum bottle caps on the side of the road. Anatsui, who was a professor at a Nigerian university and was drawn to everyday materials in his artistic practice, took the suitcase to his studio. He began to play with the covers; He folds it, cuts it into strips, and unfolds its cylindrical sides. He found a way by working with assistants. The metal pieces were pierced in several places and tied with copper wire. The synthetic language of work dictated a breadth of scope, as individual works would quickly multiply hundreds of thousands of such molecules. They danced when hung on walls and covered entire buildings.
“Converging Views” by L. Anatsui (6th Marrakesh Biennale – Photography: Jens Martin)
These artworks have astonished viewers around the world, at the Venice Biennale in 2007 or the Brooklyn Museum in 2013, for example. The bottle caps designed by Anatsui defy description and category. Is it sculpture, or tapestry? Is this art modern, abstract, international, or African? The answer to all of this is; Yes.
Last week, Anatsui’s latest large-scale work opened in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. It is titled “Behind the Red Moon,” and it evokes what is heavenly and what is sea. Descend the entrance ramp to find a large red sail with a central orb hovering above your head. Its back is undulated with shades of yellow. At the far end, another leaf recedes to the floor, as dark as a looming beach. In the middle, panels of translucent silver film rings shimmer in the light, reflecting the shapes of human figures and joining together to form a globe.
A quarter of a century after Anatsui found roadside metal covers, his works remain rewarding and elusive. It’s grand, but grounded in earthly reality, radiating more sensuality and sweep. However, when approached, it grows in speed and specificity. It invites a closer look, at sheer craftsmanship, but also at insights, woven from recycled materials, about the world we live in. With its subject matter, and the fact that it is set in London, Behind the Red Moon carries references to colonial trade and empire through metaphor.
“Behind the Red Moon” is Anatsui’s latest monumental work in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London (Tate – Lucy Green)
Princeton art historian Chika Aoki-Agulu, an expert on Anatsui’s work who also helped organize a major memorial exhibition in Munich in 2019, says Anatsui’s work amounts to nothing less than a reinvention of sculpture.
“When you look at these delicate structures in space, so massive in size, yet so fragile, and this paradoxical evocation of strength and poetry, it’s hard to find an equivalent,” Oke-Agulu said. “It is a completely new proposal.” In late August, I met Anatsui at the new studio he had built in Tema, a coastal city near Accra, the capital of Ghana. Anatsui was born and raised in Ghana, and spent 45 years in Nigeria before returning two years ago.
Anatsui in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London (Tate – Lucy Green)
Tema is a utilitarian place, a planned city with a container terminal, an oil refinery and an aluminum smelter. Anatsui’s studio is located near a major highway, next to low-rise warehouses, a cement company’s truck yard, and a large home goods store. When I arrived, Anatsui, 79, was working with 10 assistants on new works. Even a small Anatsui piece is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. His metal works were among the first pieces of contemporary African art to cross the million-dollar mark, setting major market standards, and building value for the legions of younger artists behind him. This is because the revenues support an entire economy. Anatsui’s materials are inexpensive, but he requires huge quantities. The work is intensive and labor-intensive, and now extends between two countries, between Ghana and the largest studio in Nigeria, where nearly 100 people work.
“Three Scenes” (October Gallery and the artist – Photography: Jonathan Greet)
I watched Anatsui show off sections of bottle cap fabric, laid out on the floor of a hexagonal workshop, where two assistants worked at a small table to pierce pieces of aluminum with wooden dowels — the basic laborious work. The parts on the ground were sparkling with colors of gold, silver, purple, and yellow. Some were striped with contrasting colors and shapes, others had multiple layers. The most sophisticated pieces hang on the studio walls. As we contemplated the installation of a taut rectangle about 10 feet wide, made of deep red and light pink, with an irregular gold center field, I asked Anatsui: How does he know that a job is finished?
A detail of Anatsui’s latest work at the Tate Modern in London (Tate – Lucy Green)
He replied, “It must be hung on the wall for a certain time and subjected to scrutiny and contemplation.” He asked me to interpret the piece of art: “Do you see something?” I hesitated. Then he said: “When people ask, you will start to think that there is something there.” The work was completely abstract. “There’s nothing there.” Anatsui, who everyone calls “Professor,” is intelligent and tactful. The more analytical the point, the more likely it will be offset by a cheerful smile or a chuckle. His art comes preloaded with meaning. After sorting them into boxes and bags in the studio, the lids and foil, from the containers of alcohol and other drinks, and medicines, suggest a kind of material sociology of everyday life, represented by consumption and commerce. He still gets it mostly in Nigeria, but is building his own circuits in Ghana. Where slight local differences in products and tastes can be transformed through his artwork into new colors and patterns.
In societies where adaptive reuse is the norm, Anatsui rejects the litter hypothesis. He points out that it is necessary to look at aluminum trays when holding weddings or when holding funerals, to re-melt them again into cooking utensils. He added: “We do not work with waste materials, because there are other people who use them for other purposes.” Art is one of the options in the business course.
“Behind the Red Moon” evokes what is heavenly and what is sea (Tate – Lucy Green)
He is keenly aware of the industrial organization of his own business, especially now that his supply chain runs across countries. The Nsukka studio produces work that reaches the point where it needs to be seen and touched. After his works are folded into boxes, they are shipped by DHL to Tema, where the finished pieces head out into the world. Anatsui said that when designing the Tate Modern’s gallery, he was thinking about enslaved people and agricultural goods, particularly sugar, which was the source of wealth for Henry Tate, the museum’s 19th-century patron. He said Nsukka, Tema and London “repeat a triangle in the way all the work is done.”
* New York Times service
2023-10-14 13:25:26
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