El Anatsui in "Change" - Season 6 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

[ atmospheric electronic music ]

[ EL ANATSUI ]
This is a group photograph.

And in a group photograph,

you are thinking about kinship,
you know.

Kinship,
it's a particular group.

And then they happen to be
close together.

Originally,
they were spread wide apart.

You know,
so what I've tried to do is,

to bring them together
so that they are a group.

I come from a family
of very many people,

about 32 siblings,

and– and probably
this is a reflection of that.

I was born in Ghana.

My mom died
when I was toddler,

pretty young,
about two or three.

And so I had to live
with my maternal uncle,

you know, a reverend.

And we lived in a mission house
off the presbyterian school.

My life revolved
only around a mission house

and the church,

school, church, you know.

And I remember that as a kid,
pre-kindergarten,

I was intrigued by writings
on the doors of offices,

you know, or even classrooms,

you know, that I saw around me.

And I used to sit down
and try to

emulate, you know,
those writings.

I didn't know what they meant,
but, uh–

and I remember
that the letter "G"

Was more intriguing to me
than all others– all of–

well, I don't know why.

Maybe because it has
so many appendages or–

it's not like "C" or the others.

It's a "C"
with something else on it.

You know,
it was intriguing to me.

I went to art school in Ghana,

which was an offshoot

of the Goldsmiths art school
in London.

At the time I went
to university,

I didn't know about anybody
who was living as an artist.

You know,
you knew about art teachers.

I met art teachers
in the secondary school.

but there were more teachers
than artists, you know.

And then I was wondering
how one was going to be

an artist
living purely on art.

We knew about doctors.
We knew about lawyers.

I constantly kept thinking,

"What precisely do you do
as an artist?"

I think that has helped
focus me a lot, you know,

At least to concentrate
on the practice of art

and see what I can
get out of it.

As a matter of principle,

I do not provide
installation instructions

for my works.

There's no one particular way

that these are
supposed to be installed.

- So to the left
a little bit.

Right there.

All right, spear away.

[ EL ANATSUI ] Since they are so free
and so loose and so flexible,

It would be difficult
to have a specific format

for any one of them at anytime.

- I don't have any other space
that I can hit.

- Amanda?
- Yeah?

- Okay if we start
snipping the ties off?

- I think it is, yeah.

- Okay. Yeah.
Start snipping those ties.

When they lift that bar out,

you're gonna need to lift up
the work, yeah.

- We're good.
Lift up the bar.

[tool whirring]

[ EL ANATSUI ] "Stressed World" is the title
that I give my current work.

- Yeah, I want to create some...

some crazy here.
- Yeah.

- Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[ EL ANATSUI ] There are so many conflicts
going on in the world right now,

Man-made conflicts,
natural conflicts:

earthquakes, tsunamis, wars.

I'm not sure about all these–

leave you in a state of
kind of siege.

Yeah, your mind
is in a state of siege.

- I think it's okay.

- It's nice.
[metal clinking]

- Be careful of your wrists, man.

- The media I've worked with
so far have been

metal, ceramic,
and wood in different forms.

Working with strips of wood,

I changed my approach
a little bit,

You know, by working not with
strips of wood that's processed,

but then wood
which has been used by humans...

and then transform
it into something

that you contemplate,

not something you use.

I like the drape of that.

Okay, Sally, I want some
relaxation in some places,

and, yeah.

- It's different every time.

- Yeah, every time
it's different.

That's the whole idea.

Supposed to change
with every venue

and every space.

[ EL ANATSUI ] The ceramic pieces belong
to a series that I did.

It was called broken pots.

In most parts of Africa,
when a pot is broken,

it's not the end of its life.

This idea of regeneration,

you know,
giving form to new life,

bringing about new hope,
you know.

And I did these pieces
at the time that also–

already in Nigeria.

And the economy of Ghana
was really at its lowest point.

You know, and I thought that
that was my own way

of affirming something positive,

destruction as a prerequisite
for new ideas or for new growth.

When I started working
with the bottle caps,

I was purely doing sculpture.

and somehow, inadvertently,

the color scheme
of the bottle caps

happened to replicate that of
a very popular fabric in Ghana,

The kente cloth.

Colors of kente cloth
are traditionally

the reds, the blacks,
the yellows.

That created problems,

because when people start
looking at it as textiles,

the tendency is for them to stop

looking for any meaning
beyond that.

What are bottle caps?
Liquor.

How did liquor
come into my culture?

And what does it mean?

Three continents
has something to do with

the initial ideas that I had
about bottle caps.

When the European traders came
to Africa for the first time,

they brought items
to trade with,

things like drink,

because, eventually,

drinks were exchanged for slaves
who were brought to America

to grow more cotton
and sugarcane

to make more drink
and then ship to Europe.

So the idea of three continents,
you know,

and how drink was a link factor
between the three.

When I started working
with these bottle caps,

I thought it was gonna be
a very short run.

Then as time went on,

I saw that the possibilities
are just endless.

Initially, I wasn't
concerned with color.

Now I'm concerned with color
like a painter.

Even the modes of display,
they are beginning to expand.

They happen to be displayed
predominantly on the wall.

[laughs]

But it could be on anything.

It could be on the floor.

I've showed a couple of them
on hedges, you know, on plants.

You know,
the concerns of a sculptor

and the concerns of a painter

are inherent
in each of the works that I do.

I went to Nigeria
because I had an appointment

to teach in the university.

I've lived in Nigeria
about 36 years now.

My assistants are young men

from around the vicinity
of the studio.

Basically, these are people
who just finished high school

and awaiting
entry into university.

It takes quite some time

for people to pass
the university entrance exam.

And so while they are waiting
and preparing for that day,

find time to help me
in the studio

and earn some– a living.

Probably because I pay so well

that a lot of them do come
to ask whether they could help.

Anybody I bring in has to
undergo some basic training

on how to stitch
the pieces together,

some basic skills.

The whole process
and end product

all have to do with freedom,
flexibility, you know.

so right from the instructions
they, you know–

you leave a lot of room
for people to play around.

So the resulting work tends
to have that flexibility in it.

Basically, I work in this way
that–

where I pick a medium
or a process,

and I work with it
for a long period, years.

And it has to take something
more powerful or more demanding

to really take me away from it.

At the back of my mind,

I'm seriously looking out
for anything

that can come and displace this.

[laughs]

But it would take something
really strong to do that,

because I find that each day

I go into handle
these bottle caps,

they keep generating
fresh ideas.

I lived with my maternal uncle
in a different town

from where my father

and the rest of my brothers
and sisters lived.

And so I had
very little exposure

to the textiles tradition
that was very strong with them.

And in art school,

we were introduced
to all the areas of art.

And the one that least
attracted me was textiles.

You know?
[laughs]

But then– I find it intriguing
that what I do now is very much

aligned to– like me trying
to get away from textiles,

but textiles is following--
[laughs]

following me.

I don't know.

I think the idea of recycle,
you know,

I've always kicked against it.

Recycling has to do
with the industrial process,

And that's not what I do.

I don't, for instance,
retain the bottle caps

back as bottle caps.

Yeah, you know, a new life.

And make them not objects
that do something utilitarian,

but objects of contemplation.

[metal clinking]

- Here we go.
Come around here like this.

Go like that.

Okay, it's a very long–
[laughs]

It's a very long route.

Okay, so let's start from here.

Actually, the river
should be emptying out.

and then the source should be–
- Coming out--

- In the middle of, yeah.

So this one's come.

This is called Digital River.

And it's composed of digits,
you know.

And so it compels one to always
try to play around with it.

- This way.

It should begin to swing back...
Yeah.

So that it would end
maybe somewhere here.

The rivers flow.
They do change their course.

And you know,
they cut out oxbow lakes.

And all kinds of things and–

you know, I think my work has
principally been about change,

You know,
and nonfixity of things.

You know,
the fact that things are there,

and they have to grow old
and change

and do all kinds of things,
you know.

It's not because I'm old now.

[laughs]