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CATALOG INDEX

PUBLISHER
Damiani

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.75 x 11.75 in. / 360 pgs / 320 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2022 p. 78   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788862087636 TRADE
List Price: $70.00 CAD $95.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

TERRITORY
NA LA

THE FALL 2024 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

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Preview our FALL 2024 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
  

DAMIANI

El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture

By Okwui Enwezor & Chika Okeke-Agulu.

El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture

The product of more than 30 years of research, this astounding and authoritative volume reveals the political metaphors underpinning El Anatsui’s magnificent abstract sculpture

Authored by two acclaimed scholars, Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, this is the most comprehensive and authoritative account yet on the work of El Anatsui, the world-renowned Ghanaian-born sculptor. The product of more than three decades of research and close collaboration with the artist, it shows how his early wood reliefs and terracottas, and the later monumental metal sculptures, express a search for alternative models of art-making.
The authors argue that the pervasiveness of fragmentation as a compositional device in Anatsui’s oeuvre evokes the impact of colonization and postcolonial forces on African cultures. At the same time, the invocation of resilience and fragility invests his shape-shifting sculptures with iconic power. The authors also show how, in his critically acclaimed metal works, the manual labor of flattening, cutting, twisting and crushing bottle caps and using copper wires to suture and stitch the elements into one dazzling, reconfigurable epic piece serves as a powerful metaphor for human life.
This book presents Anatsui as a visionary of incomparable imagination, also situating his work within a broader historical context—specifically, the postcolonial modernism of midcentury African artists and writers, the cultural ferment of post-independence Ghana and the intellectual environment of the 1970s Nsukka School. By recovering these histories, the authors show how and why Anatsui became one of the most formidable sculptors of our time.
Born in Anyako, Ghana, in 1944, El Anatsui is widely regarded as the greatest living African artist. He has received the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale (2015), the Praemium Imperiale Award for Sculpture (2017) and the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award (2017). His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern; and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Lagos, among others.


Featured image is reproduced from 'El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture'.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Colossal

Kate Mothes

The product of more than three decades of research and collaboration with the artist by scholars Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, who place Anatsui’s work in the historical context of post-independence Ghana and mid-20th century African modernism in art and writing. Hundreds of color images examine the sculptures in detail, giving the reader an in-depth insight into the artist’s process, how transformation is central to his pieces, and how his approach evolved over time.

Artblog

Andrea Kirsh

This book is extremely sensitively conceived, designed and produced.

El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture

in stock  $70.00


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FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/18/2022

DeYoung Museum presents 'El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture'

New Museum presents the launch of 'El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture'

Saturday, October 22 at 1 PM, the de Young Museum and Damiani Books present the west coast launch of El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture by Chika Okeke-Agulu and Okwui Enwezor. Join Okeke-Agulu and Natasha Becker, curator of African art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in a discussion of key arguments in the book, what led to its making, and its relationship with the eponymous exhibition at Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2019. To be followed by a Q&A with the audience. For those who can't join in person, please use this link for the livestream.
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FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/22/2022

New Museum presents the launch of 'El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture'

New Museum presents the launch of 'El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture'

Thursday, September 22 at 6:30 PM, the New Museum and Damiani Books present the launch of El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture by Chika Okeke-Agulu and Okwui Enwezor. Join Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, for a panel discussion featuring Okeke-Agulu, Jason Farago of The New York Times and Julian Lucas of The New Yorker, who will discuss the artistic practice and life of world-renowned, Ghanaian-born sculptor El Anatsui.
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