EL ANATSUI

When I ventured to the El Anatsui opening in Austin, I had no idea what I was walking into. His work landed here in Austin by chance. The Blanton Museum of Art happened to have a gap in their schedule when another city cancelled on him. I’d like to call it fate. I feel so fortunate to have been able to see his work in person and to have befriended an installer of the show. I learned so much about the artist that I wouldn’t have found out on my own. El Anatsui intricately repurposes old milk cans, liquor bottle labels, and wood in Africa. For some of the pieces, he hired up to 50 people to work on it at the same time. Even with the help, these pieces took weeks to make.

My favorite part of the show was the way the pieces were installed. El Anatsui has his intricate work shipped to the museum with sufficient padding and protection. The installers spent days unwrapping each individual piece. He leaves very little instruction of how to display his work. Instead, he trusts the installers to use their artistic freedom to present it well. For the big “blanket” pieces, the installers spent half a day in white gloves hanging one piece. They decided how the blanket would fold and bend. They decided if it would drape onto the floor or not. Once El Anatsui arrived to Austin to prepare for the opening, he walked around his exhibit and made  personal touches with his gloveless hands. The exhibit featured a video of the installation process, I highly recommend watching it if you go see this show.

The Blanton has one of El Anatsui’s pieces in it’s personal collection. He had never seen the way it is displayed. One of the Blanton staff members asked him if he wanted to make any changes to the installation or any personal touches to the folds. His reply: “It’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Art openings are a funny thing. I think half of the fun for me –besides the wine - is watching people try to care about the work or pretend to have some deep understanding of it. People who studied art years ago and feel they still have some connection to it. Or seasoned show-goers that are comparing it to their last experience. It’s a social experiment. I hadn’t been to an opening in over a year so it was a refreshing to say the least.