
Aluminium and copper wire, 386 x 282 cm.
The exhibition at October Gallery will be an intimate show of new works alongside examples of earlier works that give insight, add context and help explain the development of this hugely influential artist. TimeSpace combines new bottle-top wall sculptures together with several earlier works engaging with other materials and different processes.
This exhibition of predominately contemporary works explores the artist’s innovative and experimental approach to tools, processes and materials. Taking a long-perspective view of his extraordinary career, TimeSpace examines the way El Anatsui has, for decades, developed surprising and novel directions that have brought about an unexpected synthesis between African and Western practices. In so doing he has reshaped and profoundly affected the direction of contemporary sculpture, as acknowledged by the Golden Lion awarded to him in 2015 for his lifetime of achievement in the arts. El Anatsui’s sophisticated and deftly organised sculptures represent an original and unique synthesis of the diverse histories of African art with selected influences appropriated from the paradigms of contemporary Western practice.
El Anatsui is this year’s artist for the Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, which will open to the public 10th October.