El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944). Gli (Wall) (detail), 2010. Aluminum and copper wire
El Anatsui became interested in the notion of walls as religious, political, and social constructs after visiting three cities whose histories have been shaped by such structures: Berlin, Jerusalem, and Notsie, a city in Togo from which his Ewe ancestors claim descent. Gli can mean “wall,” “disrupt,” or “story” in the Ewe language. “Walls are meant to block views,” Anatsui says, “but they block only the view of the eye—the ocular view— not the imaginative view. When the eye scans a certain barrier, the imagination tends to go beyond that barrier. Walls reveal more things than they hide.”
I was at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see the magnificent hangings of El Anatsui, and this wall text impressed me so.
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