Shimmering Metal Skies: El Anatsui Fills the Turbine Hall

For Tate Modern's 2023 Turbine Hall commission, the celebrated Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui created 'Behind the Red Moon' — vast, shimmering curtains and forms stitched together from countless flattened bottle caps and fragments of metal.

From a distance they glow like tapestries of gold and crimson; up close they reveal their humble, recycled origins. Anatsui's work weaves together histories of trade, migration and the transatlantic slave route.

Few artists turn discarded material into such overwhelming beauty. In the great industrial cathedral of the Turbine Hall, his hanging skies left visitors awestruck.

Image: “Super moon over City of London from Tate Modern 2018-01-31 4” — Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.