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CURRENT EXHIBITION

EL ANATSUI: TimeSpace

11 October 2023 – 13 January 2024

**El Anatsui**, *Clouds gathering over the city*, 2023.
Aluminium and copper wire, 386 x 282 cm.
Photos: Jonathan Greet

**El Anatsui**, *Royal Slumber*, 2023.
Aluminium and copper wire, 358 x 475 cm.

October Gallery will present TimeSpace, a solo exhibition of works by El Anatsui commencing during Frieze Week. Over a dazzling career spanning more than five decades, El Anatsui has become one of the most acclaimed contemporary artists of our time. His sculptures employing an extraordinary range of media and many uncommon materials have investigated a broad array of different subjects. As the new century dawned, his early explorations in clay and tropical hardwoods gradually gave way to inventive, new strategies designed to repurpose various found materials: iron graters, milk-tin lids and — most famously — aluminium bottle-tops. Today, El Anatsui is best known for his mesmerising metallic installations, composed of tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of individual bottle-tops fastened together with copper wire. Over the past two decades, these shape-shifting sculptural forms have graced the inner and, more recently, the outer walls of an increasing number of major art institutions around the world.

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.

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FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION

TRANSVANGARDE: Free Style Cipher

18 January – 2 March 2024

**Romuald Hazoumè**, *Aïchâtte*, 2023.
Found objects, 38 x 22 x 13 cm

**Alexis Peskine**, *Ebandeli*, 2023.
Purple Japanese oxidised silver leaf, nails, black pigment and red hibiscus on wood, 120 x 120 cm.

October Gallery presents Transvangarde: Free Style Cipher, an exhibition of new works by Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Alexis Peskine and Govinda Sah ‘Azad’, with selected works by Susanne Kessler, Tian Wei, Golnaz Fathi, Jukhee Kwon, Elisabeth Lalouschek, and Romuald Hazoumè, amongst others. Based on the hip-hop notion of an interactive, freewheeling exchange of contrasting ideas and styles, the exhibited works will focus on the visual language particular to each artist, helping to decode the various layers of meaning and shed revealing light on each artist’s individual practice in conversation with and in relation to their peers.

Highlights will include new steel sculptures by Sokari Douglas Camp that continue in the vein of her recent Jonkonnu Masquerade series. These poignant yet playful works focus on the significance of feathers, examining that material’s links to colonial wealth and power, as they combine imaginative elements of carnival masquerades and festival processions. New ‘nail portraits’ by Alexis Peskine, will also be shown. These powerful works made by hammering nails of different sizes into wooden boards focus on the Black experience and questions of identity as they map the spread of the African diaspora. Exhibited will be paintings by Govinda Sah whose work comprises interwoven layers of acrylic traces and marks that build into what Sah describes as a ‘long unfolding conversation between the canvas and myself.’

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NEWS, EVENTS & RECOMMENDATIONS

HYUNDAI COMMISSION. EL ANATSUI: BEHIND THE RED MOON FOR TATE MODERN’S TURBINE HALL.

10th October, 2023 – 14th April, 2024
Tate Modern, London

Congratulations to El Anatsui! We are delighted that Tate Modern unveils a monumental sculptural installation created by the internationally acclaimed Ghanaian artist.

The Hyundai Commission: El Anatsui: Behind the Red Moon is staged in three acts which visitors are invited to move between. The first hanging, titled The Red Moon, resembles the majestic sail of a ship billowing out in the wind, announcing the beginning of a journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Red liquor bottle-tops form the outline of a red moon, or ‘blood moon’, as it appears during a lunar eclipse.

The second sculpture, , is composed of many individual layers that evoke human figures suspended in a restless state. The ethereal appearance of these figures is achieved using thin bottle-top seals wired together to create a net-like material. When viewed from a particular vantage point, these scattered shapes come together into a single circular form of the Earth.

In Anatsui’s final hanging, The Wall, a monumental black sheet of metal cloth stretches from floor to ceiling. At its base, pools of bottle tops rise from the ground in the form of crashing waves and rocky peaks. Behind its black surface, a delicate structure of shimmering silver is revealed, covered in a mosaic of multi-coloured pieces. This combination of lines and waves, blackness and technicolour, echoes the collision of global cultures and hybrid identities that Anatsui invites us to consider throughout his work.

Hyundai Commission. El Anatsui: Behind the Red Moon, Installation View,

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Photo © Tate (Joe Humphrys)

EL ANATSUI: TimeSpace
Catalogue now available in our online store

40 page soft cover
£10 (+ P&P)

Exhibition catalogue with an text by Gerard Houghton to accompany our current exhibition. Colour plates throughout.

Buy now

ZANA MASOMBUKA and HASSAN MASSOUDY at Honey & Smoke

3 October, 2023 - 6 January 2024
Honey and Smoke Grill House,
216 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5QW
Open: Monday, 5.00 pm – 10.30 pm, Tuesday – Saturday, 12.00 pm – 10.30pm

We are delighted to announce that the exhibition of works by Hassan Massoudy and Zana Masombuka at Honey & Smoke Grill House is now extended until 6th January, 2024! To accompany the new season, Honey & Smoke will serve their Christmas Feast Menus for large parties.

This collaboration between October Gallery and Honey & Smoke celebrates shared cultural traditions, the ritual of dining together and the combination of heritage and modernity in both food and art.

Elegant, gestural, calligraphic works on paper by Hassan Massoudy are presented on the ground floor of the restaurant. Born to a traditional Iraqi family, Massoudy trained in Baghdad and Paris. A master artist-calligrapher, his work connects with the Middle Eastern influence and tradition through the written word, with peace and tolerance as central themes in his work.

Zana Masombuka, an artist from South Africa, presents a body of striking photographic works in the downstairs area of the restaurant. Her work engages with the intersection of tradition with the modern age, especially through Ndebele culture, symbolism and material contrast, in a radical re-examination of the self.

More about Honey & Smoke & Co here honeyandco.co.uk

Alexis Peskine, Abada (Forever), 2023.
Black pigment, white hibiscus petals, moon gold leaf and nails on lumber core wood. 150 x 110 cm.

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ROMUALD HAZOUMÈ's work featured in new
exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre
The Stuff of Life | The Life of Stuff

10 September, 2023 – 14 January, 2024

October Gallery are thrilled that works by Romuald Hazoumè feature in The Stuff of Life | The Life of Stuff, a new, major international exhibition which opened on 10th September, 2023 at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK.

Visitors can view artworks composed of salvaged materials, re-synthesised fragments, and e-waste. They will encounter new environmental zones, where synthetic and organic matter interact, providing a fertile ground for the invention of mythical worlds, dystopias and speculative future narratives.

A major bottle-top work by El Anatsui also is featured in this exhibition, which includes works by Madi Acharya-Baskerville; Mandy Barker; Karla Black; Maarten Vanden Eynde; Ayan Farah; Daiga Grantina; Diana Lelonek; Ibrahim Mahama Mary Mattingly; Fabrice Monteiro; Marlie Mul; Samara Scott; Tejal Shah; Elias Sime; Michael E. Smith; Sarah Sze; Gavin Turk.

Romuald Hazoumè, Avatar, 2022. Found objects, 57 x 58 x 15 cm.

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AUBREY WILLIAMS: COSMOLOGICAL ABSTRACTIONS, 1973–85 at TATE BRITAIN

23 May 2023 – 12 May 2024

Tate Britain has dedicated a room to the work of Aubrey Williams, a significant aspect in the institution’s 2023 complete rehang of the world’s greatest collection of British art for the first time in 10 years.

Titled Aubrey Williams: Cosmological Abstractions, 1973–85, the display consists of paintings created in the 1970s and the 1980s, and explores Williams' involvement with ecology, cosmology, music and pre-colonial civilisations.

Visitors can now discover the galleries laid out chronologically, from the 1500s to the present day, with the relationship between British art and the wider world being a major theme throughout. Each solo exhibition room, devoted to major historic figures such as William Blake and John Constable amongst others.

Installion view of Aubrey Williams: Cosmological Abstractions, 1973–85 at Tate Britain.

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Photo: Tate (Madeleine Buddo)

SOKARI DOUGLAS CAMP CBE and ALEXIS PESKINE at The Fitzwilliam Museum

8 September, 2023 – 7 January, 2024

The Fitzwilliam Museum presents a landmark exhibition, Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance, which explores new stories from history and investigates which stories get remembered and why.

By bringing together collections from across the University of Cambridge’s museums, libraries and colleges with loans from around the world, Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance asks new questions about Cambridge’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and looks at how objects and artworks have influenced history and perspectives. Historical works are shown alongside modern and contemporary works by artists, including Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Alexis Peskine, Barbara Walker and Donald Locke — each of them challenges and reflects on hidden and untold stories.

Sokari Douglas Camp, Sugar Cane John Canoe, 2021. Mild steel and acrylic paint, 155 x 33 x 26 cm. Private Collection.

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Photo: Jonathan Greet

ROMUALD HAZOUMÈ: The Fâ Series

6 September – 22 December, 2023
Neuberger Museum of Art, NY

This exhibition presents a significant body of work by internationally renowned artist Romuald Hazoumè, based on his dedicated study of Fâ divination.

Romuald Hazoumè: The Fâ Series presents twenty-two works, primarily from the mid-1990s. The majority of these large-scale canvases draw from the visual lexicon associated with Fâ, evoking its sacred knowledge through symbols and signs. The show is organised by the Neuberger Museum of Art and curated by Christa Clarke, independent curator, art historian and Senior Advisor at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.

Romuald Hazoumè, Legba, 1994. Mixed media on canvas,150 x 200 cm.

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VISTING OCTOBER GALLERY

Bloomsbury, London

October Gallery has been instrumental in bringing to worldwide attention many of the world’s leading international artists, including El Anatsui, Rachid Koraïchi, Romuald Hazoumè, Nnenna Okore, Laila Shawa and Kenji Yoshida. The Gallery promotes the Transvangarde, the very best in contemporary art from around the planet, as well as maintaining a cultural hub in central London for poets, writers, intellectuals and artists, and hosts talks, performances and seminars, see www.octobergallery.co.uk/events

The rich diversity of art presented is an inspiration to collectors and enthusiasts. Institutions such as the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Setagagya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan have all collected works from October Gallery.

Founded in 1979, October Gallery is a charitable trust which is supported by sales of art, rental of the Gallery's unique facilities, grants from various funding bodies and the active support of dedicated artists, musicians, writers and many friends from around the world. The Gallery’s Education Department is inclusive of all ages from under 5’s to PGCE student and delivers a wide range of provision, see www.octobergalleryeducation.com

October Gallery is open from 12:30 to 17:30 pm, Tuesday to Saturday.
The Gallery is closed during official holidays and the entire month of August.

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