Fifty years without one dominant image
Triumphant Scale opened at Haus der Kunst in 2019, curated by Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu with Damian Lentini as assistant curator. It moved from ceramics and wood reliefs to vast bottle-cap surfaces.
Enwezor refused to reduce El Anatsui to the brilliance of his best-known works. The exhibition traced a sustained inquiry into African sculpture, colonialism, commodity circulation and mutable matter.
Scale is not spectacle
Three works were made for the exhibition, including Second Wave on the façade. Monumental pieces bent the museum, while drawings and notebooks kept scale from becoming pure effect.
Bottle caps evoke colonial trade. Cut, folded and joined with copper wire, they make surfaces that can be hung differently; every installation is therefore a responsible interpretation.
Buying a form that can change
For flexible works, documents must establish who decides folds, orientation and display dimensions. Certificate, diagrams, approved photographs, components and instructions matter as much as the physical object.
Monumentality should not be confused with market security. Provenance, authenticity, exhibition history, condition and the artist’s authorisation still require verification.
Sources & links
El Anatsui / Haus der Kunst / Foto Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 / Foto Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA / Foto Sailko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA