EL ANATSUI | SCULPTURE I

Bonhams, New York, Africa Now, 10 March 2010, Lot 92

Acquired from the above sale by the present owner

H. Bogatzke, R. Brockmann and C. Ludszuweit, Ondambo-African Art Forum/ Afrika Kunst Forum, p. 156, 162, 196 – 197 

Windhoek, National Art Gallery of Namibia, 1998

Sculpture I is an important example of El Anatsui's early works and was produced at ONDAMBO, an international art forum held in the town of Arandis, in the Namib desert in 1997. The forum was the first of its kind and attracted artists from across the continent, including Antonio Ole from Angola, Valente Malangatana from Mozambique, Willie Bester from South Africa and Romuald Hazoumé from Benin.

In Sculpture I the artist has used a chain saw to divide and shape camel thorn wood, a wood that is native to Southern Africa. El Anatsui began using the chain saw as a tool in 1980 during a residency at the Cummington Community Arts in Cummington, Massachusetts.

'I discovered that the chain saw was a very evocative sculpture tool, and I started using it.' 

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, whilst living and working in Nsukka, the artist began to experiment with a variety of materials and processes, creating anything from paintings to prints to performance work. Eventually, El Anatsui found himself gravitating towards the manipulation of various woods using tempera and chain saw, a technique he would become very comfortable with and continue to focus on in the years that followed.

For El Anatsui, the various tempera colours and carefully selected wood tones within his sculptural works represent the diversity of the people of Africa, whilst the aggressive chain saw cuts represent the uncontrollable violence that has gripped the continent for years. The strong linear cuts of the saw also remind the artist of the colonial division of the African continent during the Berlin Conference in 1880. Through a more contemporary lens, the patterns made by this powerful tool could also reference the hectic and brutal metropolitan lifestyles of today.

El Anatsui is most known for his glittering bottle cap tapestries, however, his wooden sculptures are of equal importance and are considered the hallmark of his early career. Works such as the present lot have undoubtedly paved the way for El Anatsui. Today, this brilliant artist is considered one of the world's most influential contemporary artists.

The artist has enjoyed several ground-breaking exhibitions such as the internationally touring exhibition, When I Last Wrote to you About Africa in 2010 and a solo show in 2008 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. In 2014, El Anatsui became an honorary Royal Academician and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest scholary societies in the United States. He has received several prestigious awards such as the 2015 Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and the 2017 Praenium Imperiale Award for Sculpture. In 2019, Munich’s Haus der Kunst hosted El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, the artist’s largest retrospective to date. The show will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 2020.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Susan Vogel, El Anatsui Art and Life, 2012 p. 36-39