The Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award to El Anatsui
Within the framework of the XIth Florence Biennale, celebrating twenty years of activity, the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award will be bestowed on Internationally acclaimed artist El Anatsui from Ghana.
El Anatsui, who has earned many prizes and honorary titles with his works, which are in prestigious public collections in four continents, is going to be in Florence on Friday 13 October 2017 to receive in person the Lorenzo il Magnifico Award, conferred in recognition of his outstanding contribution to art over a forty-year career.
By interweaving media, memory, and meaning, he has represented the essence of Africa while casting light on the relation between Humanity and Nature so as to inspire a global audience. Trains of Thought, Pot of Wisdom, Strips of Earth’s Skin and many other complex assemblages, which have a distinctive visual impact, give breath of life to the artist’s enticing vision of the world. Indeed, through creative experimentation with metals, textiles, plastic and discarded resources, he has masterly shown that ‘the poverty of the materials used in art in no way precludes the telling of rich and wonderful stories’.
