It was meant to be sugar cane. When Tate came calling, a couple of years ago, to invite the eminent Ghanaian artist El Anatsui to create a new installation for the Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission, his first idea was to plant a field of sugar cane, to wave in the autumn breezes that flow down the ramp from the gallery’s entrance doors. But annoyingly, Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas had done something similar for Tate in 2015.
Anatsui, now 81, knew that those white gold grains were the key, however. “I was born in the colonial Gold Coast [now independent Ghana] and the only sugar brand was Tate & Lyle, so I grew up knowing that Tate & Lyle benefited from the aftermath of the transatlantic trade. So I had to do something that has something to do with that period, when the continents were linked, whether for good or bad,” he gives a slightly dark chuckle. “You can't just avoid the transatlantic project.”
