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El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa Opens at the Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin
September 25, 20111:00pm
Nigerian-based artist El Anatusi is recognized today as one of the most original and compelling 
artists of his generation. A career retrospective, this exhibition of over 60 works is the first opportunity for North American audiences to see how the artist’s ideas and working processes utilizing a variety of environmental materials have developed over three decades. When I Last Wrote to You About Africa inter-relates the full range of Anatsui’s work, from early wood trays and ceramics, to rare drawings and paintings, to sculptures made from driftwood and chainsaw-carved wood, to his most recent luminous metal sculptures and wall hangings. (El Anatsui has gained international acclaim for his dazzling metallic hangings made from liquor bottle caps, and The Blanton has displayed a promised gift of one of these spectacular works since 2009.) The exhibition underscores connections among the artist’s global, local, and personal histories, and shows how, through transforming materials once overlooked or discarded, El Anatsui’s art finds meaning in the power of culture and memory.
El Anatsui: When Last I Wrote to You about Africa is organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, and has been supported, in part, by grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Support for the exhibition at The Blanton is provided by Jeanne and Michael Klein.
For more information about location and admission, please visit the Blanton Museum of Art's website.
Image: El Anatsui, Sacred Moon, 2007, Aluminum and copper wire, Photo courtesy: Jack Shainman Gallery
