The Museum for African Art and BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn are proud to present thirty years of never-before-seen drawings and sketches by the internationally acclaimed sculptor El Anatsui. El Anatsui: Process and Project will be on view at the BRIC Rotunda Gallery, 33 Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, from March 25 to May 2.

Process and Project will feature Anatsui's sketches for major sculptures as well as archival photographs of the artist at work in his studio in Nigeria. Like the pages of a family album, the exhibition unfolds in suites of preparatory sketches and images of finished pieces, showing Anatsui's thought processes on his early work in ceramic and wood. At the center of the exhibition is the monumental installation Peak Project (1999). Originally shown in the windows of Selfridges & Co., the London department store, Peak Project is composed of numerous freestanding "peaks" made from thousands of glittering tin-can lids.

Process and Project offers a rare look at the working methods of this premier artist. Following sketches, exhibition literature, and photographs from the late 1960s, to the landmark 1979 exhibition Broken Pots, held at the British Council in Enugu, Nigeria, to the 1990 Venice Biennale, viewers will trace sculptures from inception to completion. The exhibition will also display Anatsui's sketchbooks, many of which show early designs that presage his famous liquor-bottle top "cloth" sculptures and large scale in situ installations.

Ghanaian born El Anatsui is recognized as one of the most original and compelling artists of his generation. He is a major contributor to the contemporary art scene in Nsukka, where he has been a professor of sculpture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, since 1975. He has exhibited extensively abroad, including the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale, the 2004 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, the 2007 Venice Biennale, and in the recent traveling solo exhibition, Gawu. Anatsui was represented in the 2005 exhibition Africa Remix and his work is numerous international collections, including the British Museum, Centre Pompidou, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

El Anatsui: Process and Project opens in advance of El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You About Africa, a major retrospective of the artist's career, organized by the Museum for African Art, and an inaugural exhibition at the Museum's new building on Museum Mile in Manhattan, set to open in 2010. Many of the sketches in Process and Project depict ceramic and wood sculptures lent by the artist for the forthcoming retrospective.

BRIC Rotunda Gallery's Brooklyn Heights neighbor, the Brooklyn Historical Society, will co-sponsor a public lecture and discussion with exhibition curator Lisa Binder, Assistant Curator at the Museum for African Art. The lecture will take place at the Brooklyn Historical Society, 129 Pierrepont Street, on Wednesday, April 15 at 7 PM.

El Anatsui: Process and Project is organized by the Museum for African Art, New York. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.