In the last few days I looked at the use of colours and at collage techniques in art and fashion.
Let’s close the art thread today looking at density and traditional textiles, moving from El Anatsui's works.
If you look at a glance at the works of this internationally renown Ghanaian artist, who was among the highlights of last year’s edition of Art Dubai (the largest and most established contemporary art fair in the Middle East), you get the impression that his pieces are made following the accumulation technique.
Yet El Anatsui’s highly original works such as "Man's Cloth", "Woman's Cloth" or the more recent "Between Earth and Heaven" (2006) and "In the World But Don't Know the World?" (2009), actually move from African textile traditions.
Through his works El Anatsui tries to reinvent the West African traditions of strip-woven textiles, transforming and reinventing the kente technique developed by the weavers of the Akan and Ewe communities in the artist's native Ghana.
Kente cloth is woven in narrow strips sewn together and is characterised by striking colours. Some of the motifs of this traditional cloth are also used symbolically to hint for example at specific things such as resistance against foreign military domination.
El Anatsui’s peculiarity stands in reproducing the colourful motifs of kente cloth using flattened and recycled aluminium bottle tops and copper wire and in transforming the draped and folded elements of the textiles into rigid shapes that form sculpturally monumental structures.
Through his artworks El Anatsui analyses the themes of memory and loss, while using the metaphor of the cloth to explore the "fragility Vs strength" dichotomy.
Kente cloths have an important tactile quality highlighted by the use of bright colours, but so have El Anatsui’s works: in some cases the artist also used plastic disks, see for example "Dusasa II" (2007; the third image in this post shows a close up of this work that I took last year during a visit at New York’s Met). It's interesting how El Anatsui creates movement in his works by varying the density of the materials he employs.
Kente cloth has a visually compelling power that often inspired fashion designers.
African influences often resurface in fashion: the Spring/Summer 2009 collections – from Louis Vuitton to Anna Sui, passing through Missoni, Junya Watanabe and Aquilano-Rimondi – were full of tribal inspirations, including chunky necklaces and bangles, leopard spots, ikat prints and hairstyles inspired by the Masai.
In a previous post I looked at the authenticity behind the African trend in the S/S 2011 collections, mentioning also Suno and its dresses and accessories with Swahili aphorisms printed on kangas, a trend that was rather popular in the mid-to-late ‘60s (check out for example Bou-Boutique’s 1967 A-line dresses made with African kikoys and kangas - View this photo - or this video also mentioned in a previous post featuring designs by Janice Wainwright inspired by exotic African prints).
Clashing colourful prints and a variation in the density of knitwear designs characterised also Suno's Autumn/Winter 2011-12 collection.
Thakoon Panichgul mixed instead Versailles inspirations with Kenyan tribes in his collection for the next Autumnal season.
Despite the unlikeliness of such influences, the results were pleasant and ranged from jackets with detachable panniers and dresses in a vibrantly bright red and blue plaid print wrapped around the body in the fashion of African warriors to asymmetrical dresses in floral batik and sporty lean trousers in an African paisley print.
Variations in the density of the knitted hairpieces made using multi-coloured yarns provided the designer with the chance of revisiting traditional headgear.
In Thakoon's collection the gathered, draped and pleated tunics (View this photo) calling back to mind traditional textiles such as the kente cloths worn by tribe leaders (View this photo) and the padded elements and voluminous silhouettes, contributed to give the fabrics employed a tactile quality, while resplendent shades of gold (View this photo) reminded of El Anatsui's finely woven shining and sculptural textiles.
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Incredible artist.....incredible article!
Posted by: GabeSemeraro | April 10, 2011 at 09:03 AM
Those ensembles are done by a true artist! It seems like those were Batik inspired, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I fully enjoyed this article, and thank you very much for featuring El Anatsui on your blog!
Posted by: Belle Styler | May 25, 2011 at 08:35 PM