Advertisement

LACMA and Fowler join forces on African acquisition

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

‘Fading Scroll,’ a huge metal tapestry by El Anatsui that has graced the lobby of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Ahmanson Building for several months, has been jointly purchased by LACMA and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. The acquisition, made with support from the Broad Art Foundation, gives the two museums a major work by a leading African artist who was born in Ghana in 1944 and has lived and worked in Nigeria since 1975.

Like many of Anatsui’s works, in museum collections around the world, ‘Fading Scroll’ is constructed of metal castoffs. In this case, the artist has gathered thousands of liquor bottle wrappers and tops and stitched them together with copper wire.

Advertisement

The Fowler introduced Anatsui to Los Angeles last year in a critically acclaimed traveling exhibition. ‘Fading Scroll’ will remain on view at LACMA until Nov. 2. Its next appearance will be at the Fowler in ‘Transformations: Recent Contemporary African Acquisitions,’ Feb. 22 to June 14.

-- Suzanne Muchnic

Advertisement