El Anatsui: He Turns Junk Into Funk

Recently, I found out about a very interesting artist that sculpts artwork using junky things like bottle caps and wire; his name is El Anatsui. Plus, the CyberArts students will be working with him and the ROM to create an exhibit that portrays physical, mental, and spiritual walls we face in our day-to-day lives. All I can say is that I am very excited to be working next to such an amazing sculptor; this project is sure to be unforgettable!

El Anatsui's younger self in 1979 (right)


Wastepaper Bag by El Anatsui(underneath to the left)

WHO IS EL ANATSUI?

Born in Anyako, Ghana, in 1944, El Anatsui earned a Bachelor's Degree in Sculpture and a Postgraduate Diploma in Art Education from the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. He began teaching at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka as Professor of Sculpture and has been working there since 1975. He has been exhibited in countries all around the world, including the US, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, and Russia. He creates cloths(not the soft kind you are probably thinking of), made of metallic materials such as copper wire and aluminum liquor bottle caps.


Crumbling Wall by El Anatsui(left)


WHAT DOES HIS ARTWORK LOOK LIKE?

As you can see in the picture below, El Anatsui fills his works with patterns and different colours. This particular piece is very tall and wide, and it catches the viewer's eye. It is made of old graters(these were once used to make gari-a West African staple made of cassava flour). El Anatsui is built this as an homage to gari; because it is long and tedious work to make gari, this piece shows the resilency of African traditions.

El Anatsui also sculpts with wood and clay; he began creating metallic masterpieces about 10 years ago when he was driving down the road in Southern Nigeria and paused to look in a bag of trash. This bag contained discarded aluminum screw-tops from bottles of alcohol and El Anatsui took it with him to his studio. He began experimenting with the bottle tops-cutting, folding, and sewing them together with copper wire. This created a kind of metal cloth that El Anatsui has become so well-known for today.



The artist hard at work(left)

WHAT IS EL ANATSUI'S ARTWORK COMMUNICATING?

I think there is a wide range of messages hidden behind El Anatsui's work. In some, he is referring to Ghanian customs and traditions; for example, in his sculpture Adinkra Sasa, he makes reference to adinkra. Adinkra is dyed cloth stamped with designs made by the Akan people of Ghana. The designs stamped on them with a bark and iron slag mixture left a glossy surface on the cloths.

In others, he makes statements about waste problems in different countries and even deeper messages about the waste of human life. For example, in Wastepaper Bag, El Anatsui indirectly comments on the problems of waste transportation in countries that have limited recycling. It also conveys a message of disease, crime, and persecution affecting nations with political corruption and underdevelopment because the piece is made of discared printing plates used for newspaper obituary pages.


Chambers of Memory by El Anatsui(lower left)


WHAT ARE MY CONNECTIONS TO HIS CREATIONS?

When I heard that El Anatsui sculpted using junky materials, I wasn't expecting too much. I've seen works in the past where the artist piles a bunch of metal on top of a cardboard box and calls it some wierd title and suddenly everyone is raving about what a genius he is. But when I looked him up on the Internet and saw some of his pieces, I was blown away. I find it incredible that El Anatsui can transform metal into such an interesting shape, and at the same time prove to people that junky can be funky!

Adinkra Sasa by El Anatsui(lower left)











References:
http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/gawu/artworks.html
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/02/22/style/t/index.html#pagewanted=1&pageName=22nigeria&
http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/newsletters/el_anatsui_ny/
http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/el-anatsui-54637/profile.html

It's a New Year

Hey everybody,

It's the start of 2010 and this is the beginning of my second year in CyberArts! Hope the year goes well for you too :D

Optical Devices

I viewed multiple pictures and descriptions of optical devices on the LCI blog, and my opinion is that it is amazing how individuals could think up inventions like the graphoscope, or the magic lantern so many years ago. The two of my personal favourite optical devices are the graphoscope, and the poly-o-rama panoptique. The graphoscope was kind of like a large magnifying glass attached to a platform that had a small easel attached to that. What a person would do, would be to look through the single lens of the "magnifying glass" and be able to see whatever the small image on the easel would look like enlarged. The poly-o-rama panoptique, I'll just say P.O.R.P., was a device that a person would stick translucent pieces of paper that had pictures printed on them and hold the P.O.R.P. up to light to view the images. For all those who are too lazy to go to the LCI blog website, simply click on the optical devices link in sidebar link list.

Dream Assignment

This assignment was to create, using a real picture that we took and adding various elements, an unrealistic photo that illustrated the concept of "dream". For my idea of dream, I used a real photo of me and used a photo of a manga character called Vincent Valentine, whose picture I got from www.deviantart.com (the link is in the sidebar). I shrunk his picture down until he looked about 2 feet tall and drew some swirly green enery beams around him. I thought it would be interesting to see a picture of me picking up a small version of Vincent Valentine using energy beams. The thing about this assignment is that it should portray something that could not be seen in real life. My photograph is something that would definitely not be seen in real life and it also depicts something that could be easily recognized.

Pinhole Photography

Pinhole photography is a very different way of taking photos. The way to do it is to stick a pinhole into a piece of tin foil and stick that over a hole in a tin can. Then you spray the inside of the can black. You tape all sides of the tin foil and place a bit of tape over the hole to block out light. You cut and place a square of photographic paper and go outside. Take the tape off the hole and leave it off for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Then you put the tape back on and develop your photo. The result can either be an inverted negative or a black picture. You get a black picture if the photo is exposed to light too much. You get an all-white picture if the photo was exposed to too much shadows. At Gallery 44, we took pinhole photos. There are 3 examples of pinhole pictures above and a link to pinhole photographer William Mokrynski's website in the sidebar.

Compositional Elements Photo: Diagonal Lines

LIGHT AND SHADOW

This photo illustrates the element of light and shadow. The daisy is in the highlight, so it is the main piece, and the shadow is the leaves and grass behind the daisy, making it stand out even more.




TEXTURE

This photo illustrates the element of texture. The grass gives a feeling of soft grass.



CENTRE OF INTEREST

This photo illustrates the element of centre of interest. The cone's hole at the top is darker than the walls of the cone so the viewer's eyes are drawn to that first.



SELECTIVE FOCUS

This photo illustrates the element of selective focus. The camera is concentrated on the leaf and the rest of the tree is blurred.



CAMERA ANGLE

This photo illustrates the element of camera angle. The window is seen from the bottom and the camera is angled up.

Law Suit Over Marilyn Monroe's Photos

Bert Stern has filed a law suit at Michael Weiss and Donald Penny for accusing them of stealing his photos of Marilyn Monroe in 1962, just months before her death. Weiss and Penny claim they found the photos in the garbage and that there was no name or anything on them that indicated Stern's ownership. Their lawyer, James Brickell, also said that Weiss and Penny made a deal with Stern and that was to get prints for the pictures in exchange for the originals; they said Stern asked them for money instead but backed out when they refused. Stern said that was a heap of rubbish. He and his lawyer, Stephen Weingrad, declared it was unlawful for a photographer to have to pay ransom for his photos. They also accused of Weiss and Penny to have been rude when Stern had offered money to pay for their defendants' troubles with returning the photos. Who do you think is the rightful owner of the photographs? Who do you think will win?