2. El Anatsui was Born in 1944 in a town called Anyako located in Ghana's Volta region In 1957 when he was a teenager Ghana became the first political state in sub- Saharan Africa to gain independence from European power Growing up during this time greatly influenced his mature art by Anatsui witnessing the changes that came with independence He received a formal education at the College of Art of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi The British school systems were still there when he was in college and the art curriculum still taught on European art He felt that It was necessary to understand local art traditions Anatsui became a teacher in Ghana In 1975, Anatsui took a job as an art professor at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. He met and joined the Nsukka Group, a group of African artists who study and create artworks blending European and African techniques and materials. By the 1970’s Anatsui became a major artist in Africa and earned recognition Anatsui concentrates on sculpture. He is best known for found-object sculptures, created from common African household items such as cassava graters and pots He also carves wooden sculptures with hand tools and chainsaws; he turned to chainsaws as a way to sculpt faster, but has admitted he also uses them because they are fun. Anatsui still works as a professor of sculpture in Nigeria, even though African artists tend to find more success when they emigrate to the West. Along with the rest of the Nsukka Group, he continues to produce art combining Ghanaian, Nigerian, and European traditions. The Venice Biennale, a major exhibition held in 1990, included some of his work, and he also contributed to Africa Remix, an exhibition that toured worldwide between 2004 and 2007.

3. 10 feet high and 21 feet wide The piece is made up of countless bottle tops flattened into rectangular shapes and fastened together using wire The shades of gold dominate the color scheme and complemented by other colors such as reds, blues and silvers He used the vivid reds at the top to make it fade into the gold and cream colors Up close the colors seem really random but if you see it from a distance you can see colors Its not supposed to be hung up on a wall Its really malleable it can be draped and folded in an infinite number of ways There is no pre-determined way of putting it, he instead invites museum curators to fold it the way they want to Its different because of the metallic pieces and how the light shines off of it It can literally take on a new look in every installation Anatsui’s work can be related to kente cloth Fading Cloth is also intended to resemble kente cloth, a cotton or silk multi-colored fabric traditionally made by Ewe and Asante people, which has come to represent pride in African heritage throughout much of the continent. Kente makers often use silk imported from Europe, making their works cross-cultural. Anatsui’s work with metallic was completely accidental He now gets a lot of bottle caps and smashes them all up in his studio Because liquor was one of the things that fueled the slave trade all of the bottle tops he uses in his works come from African distilleries. On one level the sculpture is beautiful, stunning and amazing. On another level he forces us to look at the difficult history of imperialism and legacy.