At the beginning of a six hour studio day, Professor Matt Jenson went around the classroom asking which piece each student had chosen from the Brooklyn Museum to use as a research topic for our final seminar papers as well as inspiration for the project in his class. I told him Jenson I had chosen “Black Block” by El Anatsui, to which he replied with a groan and raised his voice to ask the rest of the class, “How many of you chose El Anatsui’s ‘Black Block’?” Half of the hands in the room shot up. Wow, how original am I? Per the suggestion of Jenson, I was to choose a different piece by Anatsui, even if it wasn’t being currently shown at the Brooklyn Museum. Upon researching, I discovered “Gli”. “Gli” by Anatsui is the first piece he used aluminum liquor bottle neck collars as media and is, in my opinion, his most stunning piece in this medium. Anatsui’s “Gli (Wall)” shimmers, creates shadows and reflects light while maintaining transparent properties. Spectators enter the room in awe as the thousands of tiny pieces of the aluminum installation wink in the light. This piece is truly magical and represents a pinnacle in Anatsui’s career. I guess secondary findings are better than primary ones.
It goes without saying that my study of Anatsui’s work began with trial and error. The direction of my thoughts completely changed when I began examining “Gli” instead of “Black Block”. My research began with observation. Anatsui’s aluminum installation pieces are quite the sight to behold. His metal work looks as though it would feel like a soft, silken bedsheet. “Gli” looks particularly soft in this way. I read and watched dozens of interviews with Anatsui which revealed his personal intentions in the fabrication of this piece. Mostly importantly, I found his concentration in materials to be quite compelling and relatable as an artist myself. “Media which come with history, meaning, with something mean something to me. Not just oil paint from a tube. I can’t relate to that well. I would rather go for something people have used. Then there is a link between me and the other people who have touched that piece,” said Anatsui in an interview while his show “Gravity and Grace” was established at the Brooklyn Museum in 2010. I found the concept of media adding a whole additional effectiveness and meaning to a piece of art to be immensely compelling. For Anatsui, the aluminum bottle neck collars represent how European colonialism in Africa has affected Africans.
As I began theorizing concepts for a piece motivated by Anatsui’s work with an emphasis on meaningful materials. I thought of using metal to create a sort of substance similar to a textile but eventually turned away from this idea; this media didn’t feel personal to me. I had no personal connection to aluminum pieces of liquor bottles. Instead, I observed materials I saw in excess in my own environment. Oddly enough, my inspiration for media use came to me at the grocery store. As I wandered down the aisles with enough sugar cereal to feed a small army in my basket I noticed how much excess material people use in packaging foods. We put food products in a sealed plastic bag, inside of a cardboard box. To purchase these food products, we check out at the register where the packaged goods are put inside another plastic package. We get home and tear through excessive packaging only to put food products on paper plates to be eaten with plastic forks. Same goes for takeout and pretty much every aspect of the food industry. Plastic stickers cover fruit, styrofoam guards leftovers, cardboard holds our daily coffees. The debris of these transactions can be seen littering the streets of Manhattan as plastic bags drift across sidewalks in the wind and public trash cans overflow. Like that, the excess of the food industry became a media I was interested in using which affected each day of my life. This waste became my material.
I was inspired to construct a cape-like coat out of materials used and wasted in the food industry. I began gathering plastic bags, fruit stickers and other pieces of trash. Upon attempting to sew certain materials together, I found styrofoam and other easily breakable materials wouldn’t be acceptable to use for this piece. I began sewing plastic bags together, using ziplock bags as some connections, others made by ripping, tying and embroidery thread and a needle. Like my last studio piece and like Anatsui, I am using all repurposed materials with the exception of the connections. Transparent ziplock bags make up most of the cape; this was inspired by the irony of “Gli” (meaning wall) being transparent. The most important characteristics of the cape are to show a cape which does not keep me warm, like a wall that does not protect or hide and to use materials easily recognizable in my culture.
Like Anatsui, I hope to use found materials to make a statement concerning something I find to be self-destructive about my culture. Anatsui focused on alcoholism while I chose to focus on consumerism. Happening upon “Gli” was one of my happiest and most inspiring mistakes in my process of research. Anatsui’s process validated my interest in using meaningful materials to further strengthen my art.
