El Anatsui at Tate Modern
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El Anatsui
Behind the Red Moon
Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, London, United Kingdom
Until Sunday, 14 April 2024
Poetic, profound, and epic in scale, El Anatsui’s Behind the Red Moon is a monumental sculptural installation made of thousands of metal bottle tops and fragments. Crumpling, crushing, and stitching them into different compositions, large panels are pieced together to form massive abstract fields of colour, shape and line. The commission builds on Anatsui’s interest in histories of encounter and the migration of goods and people during the transatlantic slave trade. Sourced in Nigeria, the liquor bottle tops used in this commission form part of a present-day industry built on colonial trade routes. Behind the Red Moon is staged as an artwork in three acts. Visitors are invited to embark on a journey of movement and interaction through the hangings, a dance between bodies and sculptures.
Part of the Hyundai Commission projects, Axel Vervoordt Gallery is proud to support this exhibition.
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