Artist: El Anatsui

Goodman Gallery London and October Gallery present two concurrent exhibitions by El Anatsui, widely regarded as one of the most influential contemporary artists working today. Anatsui’s new wooden sculptures mark a significant moment in his artistic trajectory, evolving from his foundational use of the medium during the 1980s and 1990s. The two exhibitions of Anatsui’s most recent work underscore the artist’s presence in the much-anticipated Nigerian Modernism at Tate Modern, opening 8 October 2025.

Following the 2023 Hyundai Commission, Behind the Red Moon, a majestic, three-part installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, Anatsui stands at a reflective moment in his career. The new wooden sculptures are the focus of the two coinciding exhibitions in London and reflect Anatsui’s continued curiosity with material and form through the medium that defined his early body of work while still studying at KNUST University in Kumasi, Ghana, in 1969. His approach was shaped in part by the Sankofa movement in post- independent Ghana, championed a return to Indigenous African arts and sculptural traditions as sources of inspiration as a conscious response to the post-colonial historical context and the imported British art school curriculum. The term Sankofa exhorts the importance of learning from the past, reclaiming lost knowledge, and integrating these lessons into the present to build a stronger future.

Made from timbers bought from the timber market in Tema, where Anatsui had his principal studio until recently, the wooden reliefs are comprised of multiple narrow strips, arranged in a horizontal format, one next to each other, which can be reconfigured at will. On the surface, the panels are carved into different textures - lines, scratches and burns - as well as painted with various motifs. These varied tessellated forms evoke an abstract cartography, stretching across the surfaces. They are filled with the sense of play and experimentation that has coursed through the entirety of Anatsui’s career.

The energetic return to wooden sculpture provides further emphasis to Anatsui’s core artistic vocabulary of transforming used everyday materials into art, with a supple and non-hierarchical approach to making and display. He encourages a fluid approach to the presentation of his artworks, allowing curators, collectors and art handlers to orient them at will. Similar to the large-scale bottle top works, the wood reliefs can be rearranged each time they are presented, allowing for multiplicity and openness in the interpretation of meaning.

From the outset of his career, Anatsui has employed various materials, from the circular wood plaques of the late seventies, made with common market trays, to clay and the freestanding wooden sculpture of the eighties. At that time, he also began working in relief, juxtaposing planks of varying widths and lengths while exploring traditional symbols. Using a chainsaw, he revealed its raw and expressive potential as a wood-carving tool, experimenting with processes of fragmentation, reconstruction and surface-making. Later, he would add natural earth and primary colours in tempera and acrylic paint, pushing the medium even further. Wood remains a cornerstone of Anatsui’s material practice as he explores ever new ways to reveal the sculptural forms inherent in the unworked material. The artist’s work is further contextualised and celebrated in an accompanying essay by Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, the inaugural Director of V&A East, London.