video highlights

INTERVIEW WITH EL ANATSUI

INSTALLING EL ANATSUI'S STRIPS OF EARTH'S SKIN AT THE CLARK, APRIL 2011

El Anatsui at the Clark

El Anatsui in conversation with Chika Okeke-Agulu
with an essay by Alisa LaGamma

The Ghanaian-born sculptor El Anatsui is one of the most significant artistic innovators of our time, merging personal, local, and global concerns in his visual creations. By weaving together discarded aluminum tops from Nigerian liquor bottles, Anatsui creates large-scale sculptures that demonstrate a fascinating interplay of color, shape, and fluidity.

Published to accompany an exhibition at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, this catalogue features an intimate look at several of the artist’s recent works, including Strips of Earth’s Skin (2008), Intermittent Signals (2009), and Delta (2010). Scholar and curator Alisa LaGamma provides a brief illustrated history of El Anatsui’s career and an analysis of his practice. The noted artist, curator, and professor Chika Okeke-Agulu engages his former teacher in a lively discussion of the themes of history, economy, sustainability, and identity explored within the artist’s work. Dramatic photographs of the installations at the Clark provide a unique look at these immersive sculptures.

Alisa LaGamma is Curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is the author of numerous books on African art.

Chika Okeke-Agulu,a 2008 Clark Fellow, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and has published widely on African and African Diaspora art history and theory.