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[El Anatsui: "Broken Bridge II"]

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[The High Line, New York City]

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I come from a place where you have a lot of sky.

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The sky starts from almost ground level and goes up.

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You know, but over here you have to really look up

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To realize that there is eventually sky,

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[LAUGHS] Somewhere, you know?

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That's almost the experience of most people who live in open country

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And they come to New York--

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Sky is not a common commodity.

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[sounds of city traffic]

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[JORDAN BENKE] Right?

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[ANATSUI] Mmm hmm.

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[BENKE] So we're just going to create a little crease there.

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[ANATSUI] Yeah.

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[BENKE] To here.

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[ANATSUI] Yeah.

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But if you push as hard as possible so that it gives...

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[BENKE] Yeah, you can make as big a crease as you can there.

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[ANATSUI] Yeah.

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[sound of metal folding]

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[ANATSUI] The crease actually should even be up there...

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[BENKE] Let's see, I think they...

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[ANATSUI] ...In the corner.

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[BENKE] He's adding a lot of wrinkles to the piece,

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making more of the creases...

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We were, I think, pretty conservative and not wanting to mess with the material too much...

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[Jordan Benke, Production Manager]

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Because every time you make one of these creases

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You're kind of deforming this metal.

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Hurricane Sandy came in, which basically meant we were out of power until Friday evening.

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Their crews were responding to kind of crisis stuff until the next Wednesday,

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Which is the day the nor'easter hit, so then we lost another two days.

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[ANATSUI] I came in to look at about three or four different walls

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And selected this wall because the other ones were West-facing.

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And West-facing didn't have what I think is iconic of New York.

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You know, skyscrapers and the lack of sky.

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Since the work has mirrors, I wanted mirrors to be able to pick that character and show it.

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[CECILIA ALEMANI] You see that, the antenna of the Empire?

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[ANATSUI] Ah! Ok, ok, ok! Oh! [LAUGHS]

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[ALEMANI] Pretty good, no?

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[ANATSUI] I was told that the Empire State Building can be seen in the work, which makes me very satisfied.

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It's clearer here than...

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Yeah, because the mirror is lower here.

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[ALEMANI] Yeah. It's funny.

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[ALEMANI] I think this work, to me, is a very interesting evolution in the works that El has been doing in the past.

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[Cecilia Alemani, High Line Art Curator]

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Because unlike other works that are very precious, and almost jewel-like,

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This really intertwines materials that are much more industrial in a way.

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[ANATSUI] The mirrors are about the newest element that I'm bringing into my work.

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As time goes on, I'm going to get to understand the mirror more

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And get to know what it's language is, and what things it can say, and what things it cannot say well.

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It's a gradual process.