The Royal Academy of Arts' Summer Exhibition, now celebrating its 245th year, has presented – in recent years at least – an aesthete's endurance test of sorts. This time, however, I propose that we overlook some of the disappointing selections that fall into this year's theme (obscuring boundaries between architecture and sculpture), and focus instead on the absolute show-stealer: an artwork that has not made even made it inside the building.
El Anatsui, TSIATSIA – Searching for Connection
Effortlessly cascading down the Palladian façade of Burlington House hangs a monumental, beguiling work that shimmers and glows with the effortless patterns of Klimt. Constructed from thousands of interwoven bottle caps (as well as printing plates and roofing sheets), this immense canopy, poignantly and playfully entitled TSIATSIA – Searching for Connection is the work of Ghanaian artist El Anatsui.
It is a site-specific work of delicacy and strength that speaks far beyond the sum of its many parts. As the artist himself explains: "I use discarded bottle tops woven together with copper wire. They are easily overlooked, easily seen as rubbish, but which have at the same time a huge historical significance. They are about the relationship between Europe and Africa in the sense that is was the Europeans who first brought bottles to Africa. Gin, schnapps and whisky were imported by traders for bartering. Now these drinks are manufactured by local distillers. They have names from Nigeria, where I now live. And when you collect them from the streets – and it's important to me that all these caps have been used, touched and so loaded with what I think of as human charge – they give you a sense of the sociology of and the history of a place. A material that looks commonplace and ordinary is loaded with a new significance and meaning."
Oscillating between resonance and a fluttering lightness, El Anatsui's work presents a bold, audacious opener to the 2013 show. Despite being crafted out of waste, this frieze of glowing abstraction is the richest work on show, not only for its complexity and beauty, but also for its human narrative and social discourse.
You may want to sneak a peek inside to see a few highlights by the likes of Grayson Perry (who, through the medium of tapestry, presents a bold, contemporary interpretation of Hogarth's Rake's Progress), Sean Scully, Ron Arad, Anthony Caro, and David Nash, but I wouldn't judge you if you wanted to wait – gazing upward – just outside the doors.
Royal Academy of Arts: http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/
Summer Exhibition 2013 continues until August 18.
Stephanie Hesz is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she specialized in art museum history and theory, contemporary public art, and memorials. She has worked and lectured at a number of art institutions including The Royal Collection, the National Portrait Gallery, and MoMA, New York. Currently living in London, she works as an art history educator and writer. She is Akimblog's UK correspondent and can be followed @stephaniehesz on Twitter.
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El Anatsui at the Royal Academy of Art
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