A Nomad's Revolutionary Beauty Elizabeth Harney Summary

El Anatsui is an inspirational African artist who has inspired the work of many other artists in the contemporary age. He is a mentor to other creative artist who devotes their lives for changing the way people see art, especially African art. In the article, “A Nomad’s Revolutionary Beauty,” the author, Elizabeth Harney, challenges the views of museums and critics about El Anatsui works and how it is limited when put in museums. El Anatsui’s artwork expresses a deeper, global, personal meaning, which is often being limited by museums and critics because of their approach of displaying his art in certain exhibitions. One of the main problems in museums, is the curators have a habit of installing El Anatsui’s work in the exhibitions of African and Contemporary sections. As a result, Harney argues these actions by the Museums limits the meaning and purpose of El Anatsui’s work. Furthermore, critics accuse Anatsui’s work to have an “African feel” to it; and specifically one critic characterized his work as “Transgressive …show more content…
I believe that the curators of the art museum should expand their horizons on the El Anatsui works because his artwork has a multiple purposes. In addition, his artwork can connect the world and not only interacts with us but interacts with its surrounding. More importantly, El Anatsui’s work has a deeper meaning with the history of its making and the journey all the pieces of bottle caps and material went through before it was converted to art. The history of the bottle caps can be an influence to contemporary artist and us. Great artist uses other successful artist to inspire them and influence their work to improve it. On the other hand, I think El Anatsui work can define how global contemporary art and artist practice today, they look at the past to inspire their work and create deeper meanings to connect all of us in one way or