El Anatsui's Artistic Tapestry Recalling African Traditions

El Anatsui was born in Ghana and moved to Nigeria in 1975, where he now lives and works.

Through his art he brings African traditions to the modern world, working with hand-crafted techniques materials of daily use or recycled objects. In 2002 Anatsui started using caps from alcoholic bottles, that he then stretched out, straightened and sewed with a string of copper forming big sheets of metal.
The first works of this kind were inspired by the fabrics from Ghana and in particular the traditional colors of the Kente.

The caps played also an important part in the African past, as alcohol was one of the first goods brought to the continent from the European merchants, that in exchange obtained precious raw materials.
Characterized by an extreme flexibility both in the production, as they can easily be taken off or changed or transferred, and in the presentation, as the display can be modified depending on the context, these big metallic tapestries have the capacity of changing a simple discarded material into a masterpiece.