October Gallery and Goodman Gallery London are proud to present ‘Go Back and Pick’, an exhibition in two parts by El Anatsui, widely regarded as one of the most influential contemporary artists working today. Anatsui’s new wooden sculptures mark a significant moment in his artistic trajectory, evolving from his foundational use of the medium during the 1980s and 1990s. These twin exhibitions of Anatsui’s most recent work underscore his major presence in the much-anticipated Nigerian Modernism exhibition at Tate Modern, opening 8th October, 2025.

El Anatsui’s internationally renowned sculptural practice continues to challenge the way we look at sculpture today. In the London exhibitions, his focus is on wood, his original and primary material. ‘Go Back and Pick’ presents a new series of wall-mounted sculptures, which evolve from the planar wooden reliefs that characterised his art in the 1980s and 1990s.

From the outset, Anatsui has always insisted on what he calls “the unfixed form”, the broad range of freedoms to be discovered in his sculpture. The modular nature and flexibility of the panel pieces allow for a range of spatially adaptive reconfigurations to the hanging sequence. Rather than having a fixed and final form, each panel piece can be rearranged at will to offer alternative combinations. As renowned scholars Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu note, “the form-shape and surface-colour compositions are potentially free to be manipulated […] uninhibited by whatever might have been the artist’s original composition.”