El Anatsui’s rapid ascent to the upper echelons of the contemporary art market fascinates critics, curators and collectors. While few would doubt the sophistication and magnetism of his resplendent bottle cap works, most are at a loss to...
moreEl Anatsui’s rapid ascent to the upper echelons of the contemporary art market fascinates critics, curators and collectors. While few would doubt the sophistication and magnetism of his resplendent bottle cap works, most are at a loss to explain how an unassuming sixty-year old, based in a small university town in Nigeria could achieve a synthesis of form, material, and process that so aptly captures the shape and feel of our shared global contemporary moment. His works now command high prices from art aficionados, who are drawn to them, in part, because they seem to have arrived before their blinkered eyes with little obvious pedigree.
This chapter will address the discursive framing of Anatsui’s practice and ‘trouble’ the smooth manner in which the canon of global contemporary art has incorporated his work. How do we understand his practice in relation to the governing fictions of ‘otherness,’ ‘Africa’ and ‘modernity’ within contemporary scholarship and criticism?
