Behind the Red Moon explores elemental forces interwoven with human histories of power, oppression, dispersion and survival. In this book contributions by art historians, artists and writers illuminate these themes, and a conversation between the artist and Tate curator Osei Bonsu casts light on the full range of Anatsui’s extraordinary work.

El Anatsui’s Behind the Red Moon is a monumental sculptural installation made of thousands of metal liquor bottle tops and fragments. Crumpling, crushing, and stitching them into different compositions, large panels are pieced together to form massive abstract fields of colour, shape and line. The work builds on Anatsui’s interest in histories of encounter and the migration of goods and people during the transatlantic slave trade.

In these astonishing hangings the past and present of Africa and Europe merge into sculptural forms that embody Anatsui’s idea of the ‘non-fixed form’ and are part of his highly experimental approach to sculpture. ‘Each material has its properties, physical and even spiritual,’ he explains.

Edited by Osei Bonsu, and with contributions by Bronwyn Katz, Julian Lucas, Kobena Mercer, Kwame Mintah, and Olu Oguibe.
Osei Bonsu is Curator, International Art, Tate Modern.

Bronwyn Katz is an artist, and a protégée of El Anatsui during 2023–4 through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

Julian Lucas is Staff writer at The New Yorker; National of United States

Kobena Mercer is a British art historian and writer on contemporary art and visual culture, and Charles P. Stevenson Chair in Art History and the Humanities, Bard University.

Kwame Mintah is co-founder of Efie Gallery.

Olu Oguibe is an artist.