EL Anatsui. 15.6 m x 25 m and comprising eight vertical panels – this wall-hanging sculpture is one of the largest the artist has made to date. Courtesy ZEITZ MOCAA

Major installation, TSIATSIA by El Anatsui at the ZEITZ

15/02/2019 - 15/02/2020
ZEITZ MOCAA / 2019-04-08
3 minutes read

TSIATSIA – searching for connection by acclaimed artist, El Anatsui, reinterprets and challenges the traditional trope of sculptural practice to invoke a multi-layered, sensory reimagining of our material world. 

At 15.6 m x 25 m and comprising eight vertical panels – this wall-hanging sculpture is one of the largest the artist has made to date. Inspired by the limitless possibilities of the blank canvas and adopting the method of weaving to create a tapestry – Anatsui uses aluminium bottle tops and various alcohol by-products as paint to create abstract strokes, shapes, and patterns. 

El Anatsui TSIATSIA – searching for connection. Aluminium and copper. 15.6 x 25m. Detail

In this process of abstraction, the artist represents the fluidity of life and geographical identities. It is said that at times of global turmoil, abstraction takes on heightened significance. This ideology is represented here in TSIATSIA – searching for connection as Anatsui adopts abstraction as the language to seek globalised networks of new energies and reformed progressive narratives. In 2013, with TSIATSIA – searching for connection, El Anatsui was awarded the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award. Anatsui has also received numerous other honours for his work: In 2014, he was made an Honorary Royal Academician and was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

EL Anatsui. 15.6 m x 25 m and comprising eight vertical panels – this wall-hanging sculpture is one of the largest the artist has made to date. Courtesy ZEITZ MOCAA
EL Anatsui. 15.6 m x 25 m and comprising eight vertical panels – this wall-hanging sculpture is one of the largest the artist has made to date. Courtesy ZEITZ MOCAA

In 2015, he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 56th Venice BiennaleAll the World’s Futures; and in 2016, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town, and was honoured with the Praemium Imperiale Award for Sculpture in 2017.Anatsui embraces both the formal and conceptual properties of found materials to convey rich and complex narratives pertaining to colonial and postcolonial economic endeavours and cultural exchanges in Africa and the amalgamation of histories through trade. In this sense, Anatsui uses discarded and abandoned materials as a layered means to express rich histories. It is the materiality and essence of the individual fragments that give TSIATSIA – searching for connection visual impact.

In this same way – paradoxically, Anatsui’s tapestries are both weighty and light in appearance. This luminous gold tapestry draped across the architectural fabric of Zeitz MOCAA, cascading down four floors of the museum, uses the concepts of consumption and transformation as a means to unite humanity— celebrating a plurality of cultural influences through the universal language of abstraction. The installation is presented in collaboration with October Gallery, London.

TSIATSIA – Searching for connection
Exhibition curators: Julia Kabat, Alistair Kennedy
Exhibition dates: February 2019 – December 2019
ZEITZ MOCAA
V&A Waterfront, Silo District, S Arm Rd,

Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa
 http://zeitzmocaa.museum/

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ZEITZ MOCAA

Zeitz MOCAA is a public not-for-profit contemporary art museum that collects, preserves, researches and exhibits 21st-century art from Africa and its diaspora; hosts international exhibitions; develops supporting educational and enrichment programmes; encourages intercultural understanding; and guarantees access for all. Galleries are dedicated to a large cutting-edge collection; special exhibitions; and Centres for Art Education, Curatorial Training, Performative Practice, Photography and the Moving Image.
Zeitz MOCAA was established through a partnership between the V&A Waterfront led by CEO David Green - acting on behalf of Growthpoint Properties Limited and the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), represented by the Public Investment Corporation Limited (PIC) - and collector Jochen Zeitz. The building was reimagined through a design by the acclaimed Londonbased Heatherwick Studio.

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