Kelcy Allwein - teaching El Anatsui
First, here's Kelcy’s great post on her artwork and how to teach it:"I chose El Anatsui’s Bleeding Takari II because of my interest in both installation art and artwork that is created through found objects. As I researched Anatsui and looked at other installations of Bleeding Takari II, I was awestruck by the fluidity of this medium that comes from metal bottle caps yet seems as supple as fabric. When you first see the thumbnail, Bleeding Takari II appears like an oil painting. Yet this artwork changes each time it is installed somewhere so that there is the possibility for multiple interpretations just from the changing folds, shadows and pooling of the red caps…
I can see a wall and its impact when I look at the Bleeding Takari II. It speaks to me of a wall where many have shed their blood to climb it or tear it down. It is reminiscent in some ways of the walls between East & West Germany during the Soviet era when East Germans were shot trying to escape by climbing over the wall. The bodies are not there in this artwork but it seems scarred with their blood. While Anatsui took inspiration from three cities; his current country of residence (
El Anatsui was born in Ghana
and now resides in Nigeria Nigeria' Brooklyn
Museum
'El Anatsui became interested in the notion
of walls as religious, political, and social constructs after visiting three
cities whose histories have been shaped by such structures: Berlin, Jerusalem, and
Notsie, a city in Togo from which his Ewe ancestors claim
descent. Gli can mean “wall,” “disrupt,” or “story” in the Ewe
language. “Walls are meant to block views,” Anatsui says, “but they block only
the view of the eye—the ocular view— not the imaginative view. When the eye
scans a certain barrier, the imagination tends to go beyond that barrier. Walls
reveal more things than they hide.(http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/el_anatsui/#!lb_uri=gli_detail.php)'
Teaching Anatsui:
"I would start by asking a series of questions at
different distances from the Bleeding Takari II. The first vantage point
would be 15-25 feet away so that was not easy to see the materials that make up
the artwork – instead you get a sense of the whole picture where the wall seems
readily visible. Here I would ask the students to look at it for a
few minutes and then ask what they thought the story was behind this artwork
and how it made them feel. If no one brought up walls, I would tell them
how El Anatsui used walls for inspiration from three cities – Berlin ,
Jerusalem
Next we would move as close as possible to the
Bleeding Takari II. I would ask the students to look at it from all
angles including the side. If possible, I would ask them to touch the artwork
– to feel the bottle caps – to look at how they are placed on the floor.
If not allowed to touch the artwork, I would have a small handmade sample
available. I would also have several other photographs from other
installations of the Takari to show that is indeed malleable and
changeable. I have included one that I found through Google image
search. I would ask their thoughts on how the artwork is constructed and
if they knew what the materials were (I would tell them at this point if no one
realized it was bottlecaps) and how it was constructed (how the bottlecaps were
woven together). I would also ask if they felt the same feelings
now that they knew how the artwork was made and whether they saw any new
stories from a closer point of view.
Then we would move back to the first spot 15-25 feet
away and I would give them the quote from Anatsui about walls not being able to
block the imaginative view. I would ask them to think about this quote as
they look again at this artwork and then describe how they feel it opens their
imagination."
References:
El Anatsui: Art and Life, by Susan M. Vogel http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3791346504/wnycorg-20/
Brooklyn Museum Exhibition webpage “Gravity and
race: Monumental Works by El Anatsui”, Feb 8 -Aug 18, 2013 (Includes a
video interview with El Anatsui.)
MOMA
webpage
Interview with Susan Vogel and El Anatsui (scroll down to select the specific podcast)
Alternate Installation of Bleeding Takari II showing a
variation in the folds
Additional ideas, resources and links from Ary Araguiz and Cathleen Nardi
And some great additional ideas for using art in the
classroom – and thinking about using art in the classroom from Ary Aranguiz and
Cathleen Nardi – without whose blogs and other posts my life would have been a
lot less interesting:
Ary’s great ideas for using art in the classroom
- as inquiry and as critical thinking:
And her tech tools suggestions – and
lesson plan:
Cathleen’s excellent PPT on how to
prepare for and think about using art as inquiry:
CODA: And here’s one we
made earlier: friendship quilt as reflective practice
In a project that I was on (www.learnhigher.ac.uk), 2005-2010, we
decided that as well as the formal end of project report, we would produce a
friendship quilt that covered each of the 20 areas that we had been studying.
Each one of us made a piece that reflected our experiences of working on the
project and Pauline Ridley, of Brighton
University
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