Material World: Interview with El Anatsui

Sustainability is a catch phrase in today’s hyper-consumerist world. Similarly, terms such as recycling, re-using and up-cycling have been absorbed into both political and marketing rhetoric, to the point where their meaning seems even more obscure. With his scintillating textiles composed of bottle caps and other metal refuse, it is tempting to pin one of these coinages onto the work of Nigeria-based Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, but to do so would be to miss the point entirely. Selected as the inaugural artist to exhibit at Belgian gallery Axel Vervoordt’s Hong Kong debut this past May, several specially commissioned pieces by Anatsui undulated from floor to ceiling, transforming the former office space on the fifteenth floor of the Entertainment Building in Central, into a small richly-hued arena. Rather than seeing each tapestry as an assemblage of disparate pieces, Anatsui urges the viewer instead to acknowledge their human provenance; many hands have gone into its production both during and after the creation of the art object. Speaking to ArtAsiaPacific, the 70-year-old artist explains that matter has meaning only after people have interacted with it.

What’s really striking about your work is its use of recycled materials.

It’s not recycled.

What do you mean?

Well, I don’t think I’m recycling, I’m repurposing—but actually I don’t even think it’s repurposing, it’s just the use of material. I don’t see the difference between my use of bottle caps and the use of wood. We have certain materials we call art materials and some that are not art materials, and if someone uses the latter then we say it’s “recycling.” But, I just don’t like this title because there’s something political about it.

How did you first start working with these materials?

By accident: I found them and then I sat with them for some time in the studio and then began to think about what to do with them and the idea came to start using them this way. I thought that if you put them together, then they have one voice and can say something useful. It was something that happened subconsciously. I wanted to work with materials that had been used, that people had put their hands on. After they have interacted with humans, materials have something else to offer. In fact I find it very difficult to work with materials that are straight from the source, it doesn’t appeal to me. When working with materials that have such history, the process has some kind of connective energy: the energy of all the people who have interacted with them.

Your engagement with textiles was inspired by your father, is that correct?

My father was a fisherman. During the fishing season he fished and during the non-fishing season he wove. But that wasn’t what influenced me. Textiles didn’t influence me, or rather, I wasn’t interested in textile as a technique, but more as something that has meaning. My father wove and many of my brothers wove. But eventually what got me into textiles was thinking about “what textiles mean.”

Are there any other materials that you’ve come across lately that you are hoping to work with?

I’ve worked with many used materials before. Originally I was working with wood that was timber fresh from the machine, but after some time, I stopped using this and started using wood from mortars. I worked with these for some time, I also used wood from windows, doors and other architectural supports.

You’ve been based in Nigeria for many years. Would you be interested in working with materials from other places?

Yes, any material from any part of the world interests me.

“El Anatsui: Theory of Se” is on view at Axel Vervoordt Gallery through August 12, 2014.

Ming Lin is assistant editor at ArtAsiaPacific.