Join EAR Forum | Follow Eastern Art Report on Twitter | Follow the Editor on Twitter | Follow the Editor on Academia.edu

El Anatsui: A Sculpted History of Africa

El Anatsui: A Sculpted History of Africa (ISBN 9781872843148), is the first publication on the work of artist El Anatsui, published by Saffron Books in conjunction with the October Gallery, London, in 1998.

El Anatsui: A Sculpted History of Africa

El Anatsui: A Sculpted History of Africa

With texts in English, French, German and Japanese, and lavishly illustrated throughout, El Anatsui: A Sculpted History of Africa is devoted to the examination of the work of El Anatsui, considered one of the leading sculptors of his generation. Buy this book

Chosen to represent the African continent during the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990, El Anatsui has participated in many important exhibitions abroad – in England, Germany, the United States, Japan and Brazil – and has been a leading contributor to a number of international workshops for artists. This book is the original volume that sets the scene, as it were. for El Anatsui’s numerous achievements since the 1990s, writes Sajid Rizvi, Editor, Saffron African Art and Society Series, where this book (now nearly out of print) appeared. See El Anatsui in conversation with Sajid Rizvi

Highly regarded in Africa, where he is considered to be one of the leading sculptors of his generation, Ghanaian-born El Anatsui is now rapidly establishing a wide international reputation. Chosen to represent the African continent during the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990, he has participated in many important exhibitions abroad – in England, Germany, the United States, Japan and Brazil – and has been a leading contributor to a number of international workshops for artists.

While there have been numerous articles written that deal with his impressive body of work, this book represents the first attempt to draw together under a single cover the many aspects of this artist’s singular career. The book gives both the general reader interested in the visual arts and the reader more particularly interested in contemporary African art, an overview of El Anatsui’s career and an analysis of his work to date. The various texts are complemented by a series of beautiful colour and black & white reproductions.

Just as El Anatsui’s work is concerned with the hidden histories of many different African cultures, so too this book is a composite tissue woven from different sources and written in different languages.

The contributors to the book are: John Picton, Professor Emeritus and former Reader in African Art at SOAS, University of London; Gerard Houghton, writer for the the October Gallery London; Yukiya Kawaguchi, Curator at the Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo; Elisabeth Lalouschek, Artistic Director at the October Gallery; Simon Njami, former Editor of Revue Noire, Paris, France and Elizabeth Péri-Willis, an expert on West African visual artistic practices. Buy this book

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments by Series Editor, Sajid Rizvi

Foreword by Chili Hawes, October Gallery London.

John Picton | Patches of history patching up my art history: some reflexions on the sculpture of El Anatsui, 1998

Gerard Houghton El Anatsui and the Transvangarde

Catalogue Colour Plates

Yukiya Kawaguchi (Japanese and English Texts) | A Fateful Journey

Elisabeth Lalouschek | Ein Künstler der Transvangarde: Weltansichten und Weltgeschichten

Simon Njami | Un artiste sur le fil de l’histoire

Elizabeth Peri-Willis | Chambers of Memory

Milestones (in El Anatsui’s life)

Bibliography

Index | Buy this book

El Anatsui in conversation with Sajid Rizvi

Join EAR Forum | Follow Eastern Art Report on Twitter | Follow the Editor on Twitter | Follow the Editor on Academia.edu
Share This