Behind the scenes at the El Anatsui installation

Lisa Fischman, director of the Davis, told me a great story the other day.  An alumna visiting campus stopped her and asked how in the world she managed to get El Anatsui, the most famous artist alive, to not only come to Wellesley, but also have the college host the U.S. debut of his career retrospective. It’s a real coup for the Davis and the college, as his work is part of the collections at the MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pompidou Center, the British Museum, and the Smithsonian, to name a few!

A friend snapped this photo from the install, which sounded wild. The pieces are rolled up on what looks like giant rolling pins and shipped in crates. The works of art are then unfurled and hung on top of foam mounted on the wall. It’s then folded and tucked (I think of it like ruching, which is certainly not the proper art term for this procedure), so that each piece looks a little different every time it’s installed.

The piece they are putting up in the photo is called Three Continents. It is made out of thousands of folded up Nigerian liquor-bottle caps.

El Anatsui: Three Continents

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One Response to Behind the scenes at the El Anatsui installation

  1. Sandy says:

    It’s beautiful! There’s a fascinating video of the installation on Wellesley’s website.

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