Meramec Choice Art: El Anatsui-- turning waste into art

El Anatsui

El Anatsui (born 1944) is a sculptor from Ghana. He has spent much of his career in Nigeria (a country in West Africa) where he is an artist and professor at a local college.

He has recently become popular around the world for his recycled "bottle-top installations".

Inspired by the growing waste from things humans use such as metal cans and bottle tops. West Africa, where El Anatsui lives, has limited recycling technology. Think about in what ways you notice waste around us at school, our home, our city, our country.

His materials are gathered from recycling stations and sewn together with copper wire, which are then transformed into metallic cloth-like wall sculptures resembling large pieces of shiny fabric.

“Individually, caps don’t have much to say but together they have a voice.”

Such materials, while seemingly stiff and sturdy, are actually free and flexible, which often helps with manipulation when installing his sculptures.

His art makes us think about "...consumption-the things we use, the garbage we create, and the environment".

In his studio, he works with teams of assistants--sometimes as many as 40-50 at a time-- to crush, crumple, twist, flatten, bend and fold these discarded items and then thread and bind them with copper wire.

Often times when artist start to become famous, they have to get help completing pieces. They can’t keep up with the demand of their work and need others to help execute their vision.

Once his art arrives at a museum, El Anatsui allows the museum to decide how to hang these large metal artworks. Usually they look similar to this.

Maybe you will get a chance to visit the art of El Anatsui here in our St. Louis Art Museum. The St. Louis Art Museum is in Forest Park. One of the best parts is that it's free to see all the art on exhibit.

Will your art help bring attention to the amount of waste people and companies make?

Will you use recycled materials in your art?

Will you work with metal to create your idea?

Your Turn

Maybe you will create with wire and bottle caps. Use a hand drill to make holes in the cap (use cardboard or your art book underneath what you are drilling). Wire cutters to cut and pliers to bend the wire.

Or maybe you will work with metal by embossing metal with metal tools. Metal tooling, also called “repousse” and “metal embossing” is a type of low-relief sculpture in which tools are used to create a design on metal.