(sculpture pictured above) El Anatsui - "Earth Growing Roots"
Collection of Nancy and Dave Gill
Courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York


Well, miracles can happen it seems, and having El Anatsui's work on exhibit here in San Diego is, it appears, one of those times. I saw a larger show of his work in the Fowler Museum at UCLA last year, and have been a devoted fan ever since. El Anatsui is originally from Ghana and is currently Professor of Sculpture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria.

"Earth Growing Roots" was organized by Tina Yapelli, director of the University Art Gallery at San Diego State. This show, much smaller in scale than its counterpart in UCLA, only contains seven works, modest in size, with the exception of an untitled work measuring 123 x 195 inches. Yapelli writes, in a small exhibit brochure (for those of you unfamiliar with El Anatsui's pieces), "Using copper wire, El Anatsui joins together foil bottleneck wrappers and metal bottle caps - refuse from empty liquor containers - to create colorful, fabric-like wall sculptures that juxtapose the social, political and cultural history of Africa with the stylistic and conceptual idioms of Western art practice... They (also) refer to the traditional woven kente cloth and stamped adinkra symbols of Ghana, the reductive imagery of geometric abstract painting, the pressing ecological issues of consumerism and waste, and the historical and ongoing impacts of the global marketplace."

I'm not so sure, that one or any, artwork, can possibly make so many claims, but even so, these smaller pieces appear to be more formally "self-conscious" and structurized, moving from the traditional motif to the more stylized, literal, and graphic. For example, a work like "Bleeding Takari," riddled with square holes of red metal, pours out brightly colored hemoglobin ribbons, down to the metal fabrics edge and beyond, as they appear to cling and drip onto the polished gallery floors.

Still, this exhibit is stunning in it's presentation and will likely leave you asking for more. It should not be missed; hurry though, it's only on view until May 7th.