"LuwVor," a solo exhibition by El Anatsui — a master of African contemporary art renowned for works that interweave waste and nature, past and present — is now on view at White Cube Seoul in Sinsa-dong. "LuwVor" means "soul" in the Ga language of Ghana.
The exhibition presents four recently completed large-scale installation works from the series "LuwVor 1–4." The pieces are made by flattening or cutting metal bottle caps with a hammer and linking them with copper wire in a process resembling textile weaving. In addition to bottle caps, the artist also incorporates pull rings and metal neck bands from bottles. From a distance, the works resemble enormous fabrics or tapestries. Up close, the traces and textures of the raw materials reveal themselves fully.
All the works in this exhibition were produced at the artist's studio in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The highlight is "LuwVor 2." Measuring 303 centimeters wide and 270 centimeters tall, it occupies the center of the gallery at the artist's request. Suspended in midair rather than fixed to a wall, the gently swaying work evokes winds blowing from Africa. Critics note that it vividly embodies Anatsui's concept of "non-fixed form," in which no single side is subordinate to another.
The upper portion of the work is composed of densely woven bottle caps. One face forms a monochromatic silver plane, while the opposite side brings together black, brown, yellow, and red hues from printed brand logos, evoking the vast African continent. The lower section is constructed solely from interconnected bottle-cap rings, naturally revealing openings of various sizes. The landscape on the other side shows through these gaps, and as light passes through, the work expands beyond a solid mass into a translucent weave through which light and air flow.
The artist's devotion to bottle-cap works began by chance. One day in the 1990s, while Anatsui was working as a professor in Nigeria, he stumbled upon a sack full of discarded bottle caps while walking down a street. Though they were waste, he brought them to his studio, thinking they might serve as material for his art. After repeatedly hammering, flattening, cutting, and joining the caps, textile-like sculptural forms emerged. The massive sculptures born from this process felt familiar — as if they resembled his homeland, Africa.
Louis Neri, director of the El Anatsui Studio, said, "Anatsui does not view sculpture as an object fixed at the moment of creation, but understands it as a provisional state that constantly changes depending on location, orientation, and installation conditions." He added, "This approach leads to the core concept of the artist's practice — 'non-fixed form.'"
