Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Map envy


 This is the kind of work I wish I was capable of producing for this group.
Of course, I'd have to scale down a bit as this piece, by El Anatsui, called New World Map is 11 feet by 16 feet. It is, like, all his recent sculptures made of bottle tops. For auction at Bonhams in London on 23 rd May, it is estimated to sell for £500,000 - £800,000.
Want to club together anyone?!!

6 comments:

Kit Lang said...

I was lucky enough to see this (and some of his other work) in person last spring. It's incredibly amazing - just glows!

Karen said...

I'm in

Gill said...

Me too!
It's wonderful!

Kristin L said...

I'm in for clubbing together to purchase the piece. But then I'd need someplace to display it when my turn comes around. For a larger home or office in which to show off such a fabulous artwork, I'd need even more money. And I probably should chip in for some insurance (that can't be cheap), and there's sure to be other incidentals. Hmmmm, I guess I can't afford this after all. :-(

badmomgoodmom said...

I went to his retrospective at the Fowler museum in LA and posted a slideshow. It includes some of his smaller pieces. Perhaps we can club together to buy one of those and then rotate homes on a quarterly basis?

I wrote about the meaning behind the pieces, which I found fascinating.
http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/2007/07/el-anatsui-gawu.html

More pictures in other posts:
http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/search?q=el+anatsui

Flickr slide show:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80473410@N00/sets/72157601081375760/
This includes some of his AIDS awareness work, which isn't as popular in museums but is very powerful.

Seriously, he has a workshop and apprentices making all this stuff. Nowadays, he's more of a teacher, manager and world ambassador.

When we went to Africa in 2010-11, we visited some art galleries. There is so much exciting art made from cast-offs in Africa. A UCSB professor takes art collectors on art/artist studio tours of Africa. I'd like to club together to hire him for a small tour group.

JB said...

Thanks for introducing us to this fascinating artist. His bio is most interesting.