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| The inspirational work of El Anatsui, Rising Sea. |
The interior spaces of the Guggenheim are as remarkable as the exterior and at times completely dwarf the art. Even Picasso's larger pieces of sculpture looked intimidated by their context.
One piece, however, held its own. The Ghanian artist El Anatsui's monumental work, Rising Sea, up on the third floor. As it happens this was the last piece we walked past and when I appreciated what I was looking at it completely stunned me. Art from liquor bottle tops.
Quote from Curator: For six decades, El Anatsui has been refining a pictorial language that transcends boundaries of culture and medium. In 1998, the artist began making metal sculpture from discarded liquor bottle tops. The material holds conceptual significance given that alcohol was one off the commodities Europeans transported to Africa in exchange for slaves. The material therefore bestows the work with an historical symbolism that, as with so much of Anatsui's work is as powerful as it is subtle.
His team of studio assistances flatten, twist, crush and then stitch the aluminium tops together with copper wire which took up to a year for this piece!
The epic scale of the work is a metaphor for the enormity of climate change.
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| Rising Sea, the expansive surface glimmers like waves, the bottom colour bursts suggest a skyline. |
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| Warhol, Kusama, Picasso |
