Away from Africa

"Gli" (Wall), 2010, at the beginning of the exhibition area, Brooklyn Museum What a life trajectory. El Anatsui's work is now featured in a retrospective at one of the United States' premier museums, the Brooklyn Museum :  Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui , curated by Kevin Dumouchelle. El Anatsui has been shown at New York City's contemporary African art galleries since over 20 years, such as Skoto Gallery and the  Contemporary African Art  gallery. The first pieces I had seen, in the 1990s, and admired, were made of wood, and I still have a Newark Museum postcard I held on to since 2007. Several years ago, both Skoto Gallery and the Contemporary African Art Gallery staged a double exhibit of El Anatsui's new metal work, which is the art that finally made him famous worldwide, at the age of sixty! "Amewo" (People) - 1998, modified 2010 The art  was so wonderful to behold that we all wanted a piece, even though none of ...

T he words "modern" and "African art" are rarely used together. African art as usually identified as traditional art: sculpted masks, statues, in the same style they were done for hundreds of years. One of the galleries attempting to change this is the  Contemporary   African   Art   Gallery  in  Manhattan ,  New York  City. Founder Bill Karg is an architect, and he lived and worked for over five years in  Africa , working on low-income self-built housing, as a consultant for various organizations, such as USAID, the United Nations, the World Bank, and various African governments. El Anatsui wall hanging While he was in  Africa , he started collecting the work of contemporary local artists, and in doing so, met them and learned about their work. He realized that many were well-known, well-collected, and often shown in  Europe  but were virtually unknown in the  United States .  Karg felt that this situation...