El Anatsui

Internationally acclaimed artist, El Anatsui
(b. 1944, Anyako, Ghana) has a long and
distinguished career as both sculptor and
teacher – he taught at the University of
Nigeria, Nsukka for nearly four decades. In
2015, he was warded the Venice Biennale’s
highest honour, the Golden Lion for Lifetime
Achievement. In 2014, El Anatsui was made
an Honorary Royal Academician and elected to
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Major solo exhibitions include Royal Ontario
Museum, Toronto (2010); National Museum
of Ethnology, Osaka (2010); Akron Art
Museum, Akron, Ohio (2012), which travelled
to the Brooklyn Museum, New Y ork and the
Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2013); Bass
Museum of Art, Miami (2014); and Museum
of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2015). In
2019, El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, a major
career survey curated by Okwui Enwezor and
Chika Okeke-Agulu, was presented at Haus
der Kunst, Munich, before touring to Mathaf:
Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2019; and
Kunstmuseum Bern, 2020. Anatsui’s works
have been featured in Ghana’s first National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019); the
Marrakech Biennale (2016); Biennale of Sydney
(2012); Moscow Biennale, (2009); Venice
Biennale and Sharjah Biennial (2007); Biennale
of African Art, Dakar (2006); Gwangju
Biennale (2004); Johannesburg Biennale (1995);
Havana Biennale (1994); Venice Biennale
(1990). In 2023, El Anatsui’s largest work to
date Behind the Red Moon was unveiled at the
Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall for the site-specific
Hyundai Commission which toured to the
Museum of Art Pudong (MAP), Shanghai in
2024. His work is held in prestigious public
collections across the globe including: The
British Museum, London; Centre Pompidou,
Paris; de Young Museum, San Francisco;
Smithsonian Institution, Washington;
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi; Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, California;
The National Gallery of Contemporary
Art, Lagos; Brooklyn Museum, New York;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Tate
Modern, London; 21st Century Museum of
Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, among others.