Man's Cloth (El Anatsui)

Man's Cloth is a large wall-hanging sculpture created between 1998 and 2001 by the Ghanaian-born, Nigeria-based artist El Anatsui, assembled from thousands of flattened aluminum liquor bottle caps and printed labels, individually crimped and stitched together with copper wire into a shimmering, textile-like metal surface that can be draped and reshaped for each installation. The work is characteristic of Anatsui's broader practice of transforming waste materials sourced from local recycling stations into monumental cloth-like forms that recall the woven strip patterns of Ghanaian kente cloth while reflecting on consumption, trade and the history of alcohol as a colonial-era commodity in West Africa. It was exhibited at the British Museum in 2009 and helped establish Anatsui's international reputation as one of contemporary Africa's most significant sculptors.