/ARTS WEEKLY/ART: An Africa Regained in London

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Beverly Andrews

LONDON, Jan 20 2003 (IPS) - Ghanaian sculptor Al Anatsui has become one of Africa’s foremost artists over his long career. A visit to London’s October Gallery that is currently hosting an exhibition of his most recent work shows why.

One is struck by the vibrancy of the work, a vibrancy which springs largely from Anatsui’s use of colours to create images.

Anatsui draws on a broad spectrum of indigenous African culture, drawn from his experience of living both in Ghana and Nigeria. His work seeks to synthesise the diverse histories of African art, and to spotlight the erosion of African traditions by powerful external forces.

Al Anatsui’s quest to find a truly African voice dates back to his years as a university student at Kumasi College in Ghana, one of Africa’s most respected arts institutions.

"The one thing I remember is that both at school and later at university in Kumasi there was always a search – the search for a voice which would be my own voice," Anatsui says. "This was prompted primarily by a reaction to those schools’ academic orientation."

Most art schools in Ghana started as offshoots of overseas campuses, with particularly strong ties to British schools, he says. Finding himself away from these influences was a challenge, that soon came to be expressed through his sculpture.

"I didn’t begin to sculpt until university, and that opened a whole new dimension," he says. "It was more tactile, more real, yielding. Many more possibilities than the static painting of still lives I’d done at school."

Despite his obvious joy in discovering sculpture, he found that traditional art school education in Africa still had its limitations. "Given this typically English art school curriculum which had almost no connection with the indigenous cultures of the place, one needed to look around for other things," he says.

"It wasn’t like being a student of art in England, where you visit the Tate or the British Museum, and see what your predecessors had done," he says. "We had no such facilities at school, but we were aware that there had to be something else, and that was what I was searching for."

Anatsui looked to indigenous art forms for inspiration. He found them at the National Cultural Centre in Accra where he would sit and watch artists at work. They would be printing fabrics, weaving cloth, casting in bronze and brass, making little gold-weight figurines, carving and making pottery.

Singers and dancers joined visual artists to create a uniquely African voice.

The lasting effect of these visits is visible in Anatsui’s work. He makes strong use of African wood. A wooden carving which evokes an entire village seen from the window of a hut is a remarkable work.

Or take the extraordinary beauty of ‘Women’s Cloth’ made from recycled bottle tops. The use of these tops from bottles of liquor is itself a comment on the plight of women. The tops are beaten flat to suggest the flow of the cloth. The same technique is used in the accompanying ‘Man’s Cloth’, which makes its own comment on men.

Use of recycled material is a strong feature of Anatsui’s work, and it appears to come from early childhood experiences. "I’m sure that if I used toys they would have been things that I made myself, so I suppose using recycled objects wasn’t altogether a new idea," he says. "I remember as a child making vehicles and things using seeds – there’s a seed shaped exactly like a tyre – between two of which you can put a stick, and use an old sardine tin or something to make vehicles, trailers and so on."

Sculpture fascinates Anatsui, but he continues to paint as well. His ‘Grandma’s Cloth’ appears from a distance to be an eloquently hung piece of dyed cloth that tells of lost memories. It is only when you come closer that you see it is made of wood, and that the dyed effect comes from painting.

This technique is used again in ‘Kente Cloth’ that is really a piece of wood, carved and painted. The artist has taken something seen as temporary, and given it a permanence.

Anatsui’s work is both beautiful and inspiring. Through his sculpture, he presents an Africa seen on its own terms. His work also speaks to a younger generation of African artists of a distinct African voice which does not have to ape European traditions.