He combines such disparate materials as bottle caps, printing plates, cassava graters, copper wiring, and sheet metal into both floor-based sculptures and shimmering wall pieces that sway and flex like cloth, despite their rigid composite materials. In transforming discarded objects into large-scale artworks, Ghanaian-born Anatsui explores the effects of human consumption on the environment and the fraught material and ideological relations between Africa and the Western world at large. Anatsui has exhibited in New York, London, Lagos, Barcelona, and Doha. He has participated in the Venice Biennale twice, once in 1990 and again in 2007, and received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2009. His work has achieved seven figures at auction and belongs in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of African Art, and the British Museum, among others.

El Anatsui

In his sculptures and installations, El Anatsui transforms simple, everyday objects into grand, totemic assemblages.

https://data.wengcontemporary.com/media/El_Anatsui_The_Collection_Content_Sheet_2024_compressed_SAygJen.pdf

The composition of One in Two consists of an enormous array of the artist’s signature bottle caps in a multiplicity of shapes and colours. Anatsui’s alteration of the caps’ scale, marks a further evolution in his masterful exploration of form. By presenting two distinct configurations of the same printed composition, he extends the remarkable fluidity of his sculpture into the realm of printmaking. Odd-numbered prints are approximately 98.425 x 88.9 x 2.54 cm | 38.75 x 35 x 1 in. (Variable)Even-numbered prints are approximately 66.04 x 80.01 x 3.81 cm | 26 x 31.5 x 1.5 in. (Variable)

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“ If you touch something you leave a charge on it, and anybody else touching it connects with you, in a way. „

—El Anatsui