El Anatsui is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria.
27 Facts About El Anatsui
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El Anatsui has drawn particular international attention for his "bottle-top installations".
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El Anatsui was born in Anyako, in the Volta Region of Ghana.
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The youngest of his father's 32 children, El Anatsui lost his mother and was raised by his uncle.
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El Anatsui received his postgraduate diploma in Art Education the following year, in 1969, from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in Kumasi.
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El Anatsui began teaching at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1975.
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El Anatsui became a senior lecturer for the Fine and Applied Arts department in 1982, and later became head of that department and full professor of sculpture in 1996, a role he occupied until 2011.
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William Kentridge has made his reputation from Johannesburg, and El Anatsui has conquered the planet while living and working in the Nigerian university town of Nsukka.
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El Anatsui began using wood to construct wall panels from strips placed next to each other, the surface decorated with designs imparted on the material through the use of chain saws, gouges, flame, or paint.
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El Anatsui was interested in how, even after a pot breaks and ceases being used in the way we commonly think, it takes on a new purpose, even acquires more uses, from the mundane to the spiritual.
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Metal bottle caps are a favorite material of his; like cloth, El Anatsui describes, an arrangement of bottle caps is versatile, allowing him to consider his art both sculpturally and in a painterly manner.
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El Anatsui's work is thematically connected to the West African cultural landscape and ideas of consumption and labor.
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El Anatsui's career grew gradually, starting in his home village of Nsukka before branching off to places such as Enugu and Lagos, and eventually internationally.
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In 1990, El Anatsui had his first important group show at the Studio Museum In Harlem, New York.
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El Anatsui was one of three artists singled out in the 1990 exhibition "Contemporary African Artists: Changing Traditions", which was extended for five years.
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In 1995, El Anatsui held his first solo exhibition outside of Africa in London.
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El Anatsui expressed a variety of themes and demonstrated how African art can be shown in a multitude of ways that are not seen as "typical" African.
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El Anatsui's work utilized conceptual modes used by European and American artists but hardly in African countries.
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El Anatsui showed his work at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in 2005.
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El Anatsui was invited to the Venice Biennale in 2006 and again in 2007 where he was commissioned to make two hanging metal tapestries.
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El Anatsui was selected for the 2023 Hyundai Commission at the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern; a vast display space for large-scale sculptural and site-specific artworks.
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El Anatsui was selected to be a member of the International Society for Education through Art world council in 1992 for his work in education.
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El Anatsui was a founding member and fellow of the Forum for African Arts in 2000.
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El Anatsui won an honorable mention at the First Ghana National Art Competition as an undergraduate student in 1968.
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El Anatsui was selected to be one of ten artists invited to the Zweites Symposium Nordesekkuste residency in Cuxhaven, West Germany, in 1984.
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In 1990, El Anatsui was invited to the 44th annual Venice Biennale show 5 Contemporary African Artists, where he received an honorable mention.
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In 2017, El Anatsui was awarded the Praemium Imperiale, the first Ghanaian to win this international art prize.