EL ANATSUI, the reinvention of sculpture

359pp., b/w & colour illus., hardback, Bologna, 2022

Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui was born in 1944 in Anyako, Ghana, and currently runs a studio practice in Nsukka, Enugu, Nigeria, and Tema, Ghana. For many years he was Professor of Sculpture and later Departmental Head at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He has received international attention for his large-scale installations made with reclaimed bottle-tops.

In 2014, he was made an Honorary Royal Academician and elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2015 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 56th Venice Biennale; in 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town, and in 2017 he was honoured with the Praemium Imperiale Award for Sculpture.

Curator, scholar, writer and critic Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019) organised Documenta 11 in Germany in 2002 and was Artistic Director of the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.

Artist, art historian and critic Chika Okeke-Agulu is Professor of African and African Diaspora Art and Theory at Princeton University. He is the author of Obiora Udechukwu: Line, Image, Text and Yusuf Grillo: Painting, Lagos, Life.