In 2011, El Anatsui's Gravity and Grace (2010) was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, and Hamaya, Kanagawa, Japan. Those who saw that exhibition and encountered the work again eight years later, as it has radically transformed in the Triumphant Scale exhibition at Haus der Kunst, Munich, would appreciate the metamorphic nature of the artist's work—which is the key subject of this book by Chika Okeke-Agulu and Okwui Enwezor. How do we rigorously engage in an iconographic study of an artwork that keeps changing in form each time it is installed? This phenomenon challenges art critics, historians, curators, and exhibition organizers who are concerned about the indexical connection between a work of art and its documentation.
It is this shape-shifting character of Anatsui's work that the authors refer to as a “reinvention of sculpture.” They note that this emerged from the artist's constant search and experimentation, rooted in...