A giant sail with a tale conjures up the horrors of the past at the Tate

WHEN the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui looks at the horizontal expanse of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, he sees a ship. And as you walk in, he greets you with a vast sail, suspended from the ceiling, deep red in colour, shimmering in the light and caught mid-billow.

- Ben Luke

Hyundai Commission: El Anatsui:
Behind the Red Moon Tate Modern,
SE1 *****

It’s called The Red Moon. Amid the crimson, in glistering gold fragments, is a lunar circle, alluding to the blood moon produced in an eclipse.

Anatsui has fashioned this vast piece from his trademark material: metal bottle tops, mostly from alcoholic drinks, crushed and tied, with the help of numerous studio assistants, with copper wire into huge textiles. The lids have a complex social history, involving colonial trade routes including, of course, the slave trade — the sugar that fuels alcohol being produced on plantations by enslaved peoples. El Anatsui refers to Tate’s historic connection with the sugar industry in a text on the wall.