In search of freedom - El Anatsui

The Center for French National Monuments invites the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui to the Conciergerie for his first monographic exhibition in France.

Surrounded by a subdued light, under the centuries old vaults of the monument, itis work echoes the history of the place and the passing of time. Two rivers mixing textiles and video projection, as an allusion to the river Seine, run through the hall of the Men of Arms on old railway sleepers. On the walls and in the fireplaces, six monumental sculptures, like drapes made with alcohol bottle caps and soda cans blades, symbolize doors opening onto an infinite field of possibilities. El Anatsui invites the visitors to reappropriate the monument and to become, the time of a dream, the living elements of his installation.

El Anatsui is one of the most recognized and fascinating international contemporary artists of our time. Throughout a distinguished forty-five-year career as a sculptor and teacher, he addressed a wide range of social, political and historical concerns, and embraced an equally diverse range of mediums and processes.

Curator: N'Goné Fall (Senegal), General Commissioner of the Africa2020 Season.

About the Centre des monuments nationaux

The archaeological sites of Glanum and Carnac, the abbeys of Montmajour and Mont-Saint-Michel, the Château d’If and the Château d'Azay-le-Rideau, the ramparts of Carcassonne, the Arc de Triomphe, the Villa Savoye and the Villa Cavrois are just some of the 100 national monuments entrusted to the Centre des Monuments Nationaux by the State.

Photo Credit: ©Jonathan Greet