El Anatsui - XOHANAMI – Head

El Anatsui 
XOHANAMI – Head
2026
Woodcut Print on Hahnemühle paper, 350g/m² 
100 x 78.5 cm / 39.4 × 30.9 in
Edition of 60 (with 12 variants / 5 copies each)
Signed and numbered verso, stamped recto
Printed by Chavanne & Pechmann, Apetlon 
Published by museum in progress and Safety Curtain 

El Anatsui created those limited woodcut prints on the occasion of his project for the Vienna State Opera in 2025/26. 
Entitled XOHANAMI (Ewe for “receive our song”) it presented the image of a massed crowd, constituted from wooden trays that fuel local market activity in Ghana and are the first found materials that Anatsui used for his art in the 1970s.
Anatsui's three different figures isolate the human presence in an intimate register. Printed directly from individual wooden figures from the “crowd”, the prints gather layers of color and nuance during the printing process. 

The print XOHANAMI – Head got printed with 12 different backgrounds. Each of those 12 versions got printed five times and add up to an edition of 60. All signed and numbered by the artist. 

Next to XOHANAMI – Head, Anatsui created two other prints on the same occasion. Find all three editions here. 

El Anatsui (b.1944, Anyako, Ghana) is an internationally acclaimed artist who transforms simple materials into complex assemblages that create distinctive visual impact. Anatsui uses resources typically discarded such as liquor bottle caps and cassava graters to create sculptures that defy categorisation. Anatsui’s use of these materials reflects his interest in reuse, transformation, and an intrinsic desire to connect to his continent while transcending the limitations of place.

In 2023, Anatsui was awarded the highly reputable Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. He was also included in TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2023. His major solo exhibition titled Behind the Red Moon, at the Tate Modern, explored elemental forces interwoven with human histories of power, oppression, dispersion, and survival. In 2019, 'El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale,' a major career survey curated by Okwui Enwezor, opened at Haus der Kunst and travelled to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Kunstmuseum Bern and Guggenheim Bilbao in 2020. In 2015, Anatsui was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, the Venice Biennale’s highest honour. Anatsui’s solo exhibition 'Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,' was organized by the Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio (2012), and travelled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2013); then to the Bass Museum of Art in Miami, Florida (2014); and concluded at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California (2015).

Collections include: African Studies Gallery, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria; Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio; Asele Institute, Nimo, Nigeria; The British Museum, London, UK; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Jordan National Gallery of Arts, Amman, Jordan; Musée Ariana, Geneva, Switzerland; and Osaka Foundation of Culture, Osaka, Japan.