'Hyundai Commission' Selects 'El Anatsui' as 2023 Exhibition Artist

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Hyundai Motor Company announced on the 23rd that Ghanaian world-renowned artist El Anatsui has been selected as this year’s exhibition artist for the 'Hyundai Commission' held at the Tate Modern, a contemporary art museum in the United Kingdom.

Now in its 8th year, the Hyundai Commission is an exhibition project presented annually since 2015, following a long-term partnership between Hyundai Motor Company and the Tate Museum aimed at the development and popularization of contemporary art.

Through the Hyundai Commission, the Tate Museum selects one artist each year to provide an opportunity to showcase new works in the Turbine Hall, an exhibition space located at the heart of Tate Modern.

El Anatsui, selected as the 2023 exhibition artist, is a world-renowned artist and educator who has taught at Nigeria’s Nsukka University. Over more than 40 years, he has continued various artistic experiments, building his own sculptural language and expanding the possibilities of sculpture.

El Anatsui has especially conducted diverse experiments with materials and forms by utilizing wood, ceramics, or easily collected objects such as bottle caps. Based on this, he explores major contemporary social issues such as environment, consumption, and trade, leading the flow of contemporary art.

Work by El Anatsui. Source: El Anatsui, Kindred Viewpoints, 2016. Image courtesy Marrakech Biennale 6, NOT NEW NOW. Photo by Jens Martin

His sculptural works, made by connecting thousands of discarded bottle caps with copper wire and hanging them long, have been a representative series since the late 1990s. Although made of metal, these works are designed to be transformed and installed in different forms each time they are placed in a new space.

El Anatsui, who received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2015 Venice Biennale, continuously pursues new attempts based on a deep interest in the historical meanings of the materials used in his work process as well as the aesthetic traditions inherited and developed in each region.

Francis Morris, Director of Tate Modern, said, “El Anatsui is one of the most original and impressive sculptors in the contemporary art world today,” adding, “We have high expectations for how he will transform the Tate Modern Turbine Hall in this year’s Hyundai Commission.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.