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de Young Museum Acquires Sculpture from Ghanian Artist El Anatsui
6/23/2005 Aluminum and Copper Sculpture Echoes
West African Kente Cloth New de Young Reopens October 15, 2005
San Francisco, June 23, 2005 – As the new de Young prepares for its opening in Golden Gate Park on October 15, 2005, Harry S. Parker III, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, has announced the acquisition of a 10 by 12-foot sculpture for the African Art Gallery by renowned Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. The work, titled Hovor II (which translates from the Ewe language as “cloth of value”), will be hung in the entrance to the Africa gallery wing, and is constructed of hundreds of flattened metal seals from discarded liquor bottles, flattened and attached into sheets with copper wire in a pattern that evokes the style of West African ceremonial kente cloth. With Hovor II, Anatsui creates a dichotomy between what the eye sees and what the mind knows. Although the piece hangs and drapes as cloth, it is assembled from rigid and unyielding materials. “This exceptional sculpture by El Anatsui is an important addition to the de Young’s wide-ranging collections of world art,” says Harry Parker. “His work blends tradition and innovation and fits perfectly with the museum’s mission of highlighting historic and cultural connections in a contemporary context.”
El Anatsui’s current sculpture series interprets kente, a ceremonial cloth hand-woven on a horizontal treadle loom and worn during important social and religious occasions. Weavers use both color and complex designs to convey meaning, and each kente pattern is unique. Anatsui’s father and brothers wove kente, and he received such a cloth as a gift from his family when he was admitted to the College of Art at Kumasi, Ghana. His use of metal materials to suggest textiles serves as a commentary on our global economy of consumption and recycling, the resilience of African traditions over time, and the reality of present-day existence in Africa. “El Anatsui’s sculpture provides a contemporary counterpoint to the African art galleries that elegantly complements the existing collection,” says Kathleen Berrin, Curator in Charge of the Art of Africa, Oceana, and the Americas for the de Young. “His unique perspective has enabled him to fuse continuing traditions in West African art with contemporary sensibilities to create works that embody a complex system of references to the history, philosophy, and values of African culture.”
Born in 1944, El Anatsui has produced a number of innovative artworks that are considered to be definitive of the Nsukka school of sculpture. He has influenced multiple generations of contemporary artists through his work and teachings over the past 30 years at the University of Nigeria, where he is currently Professor of Sculpture. He has participated in more than 85 exhibitions and his works are held in 18 public institutions, including the British Museum, the National Museum for African Art, the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo and the National Gallery of Contemporary Art in Nigeria.
The new de Young: Site-Specific Commissions
The de Young has commissioned Gerhard Richter, James Turrell, Andy Goldsworthy, Kiki Smith, and Ed Ruscha to create site-specific works for the new building designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Gerhard Richter’s large-scale mural, Strontium constructed of 130 C-print photographs mounted on aluminum, will be installed in the Diane B. and Alfred S. Wilsey Court, the central public gathering space of the new museum. James Turrell’s skyspace, titled Three Gems, will be installed in the museum’s Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden. As Turrell’s first skyspace in the form of a stupa, or dome, Three Gems will be built into a hill within the garden and will feature a view of the sky altered by lighting effects that change with existing light and weather conditions outside.
Andy Goldsworthy’s installation, Drawn Stone, inspired by the unique character of California’s tectonic topography, uses split paving stones to form a continuous crack running north from the edge of the Music Concourse roadway to the door of the museum’s principal entrance. Kiki Smith’s large-scale sculpture, Near, reinterprets David, Joanna, and Abigail Mason (1670), a holding in the de Young’s American paintings collection attributed to the Freake-Gibbs Painter. Elements of the piece will also evoke the de Young’s unconventional layout and dramatic copper skin. Ed Ruscha will create two large-scale paintings that will flank his 1983 piece, A Particular Kind of Heaven (already in the museum’s collection) to form a spectacular, monumental triptych. Ruscha’s new panels re-visit and reinvent his earlier work -- an essential component of his art practice -- and will enhance the panoramic scope and scale of the earlier painting.
About the new de Young
Founded in 1895 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the de Young museum has been an integral part of the cultural fabric of the city and a cherished destination for millions of residents and visitors to the region for over 100 years. On October 15, 2005, the de Young museum will re-open in a new facility designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan Architects in San Francisco. The new de Young will provide San Francisco with a landmark art museum to showcase the museum’s significant collections of American art from the 17th through the 20th centuries, modern and contemporary art, art from Central and South America, the Pacific and Africa, as well as an important and diverse collection of textiles.
The de Young and its sister museum, the Legion of Honor, together make up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest public arts institution in the city and one of the largest art museums in the United States.
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