It was a shimmering metal wall hanging fashioned from thousands of bottle tops that won El Anatsui international acclaim . During the Venice Biennale in 2007 the Ghanaian sculptor transformed the facade of a museum by draping one of his exquisite metal tapestries over the top of it , causing a sensation in the art world . Today , he is hot property , collected by the world 's major museums and selling his rippling metal installations that nod to indigenous art for hundreds of thousands of dollars . His latest work goes on display this week at New York 's High Line , an elevated park built on an old freight rail line in Manhattan . `` Broken Bridge II '' will be his largest installation yet -- a 37-foot-high sculpture made of recycled pressed tin and mirrors woven together with copper wire . `` The idea of the mirrors is to bring in the landmarks of New York ... to celebrate the achievements of where the work is , '' he said . The Empire State Building is one building reflected in the sculpture . Read related : America 's black cowboys fight for their place in history . El Anatsui is known for his interest in indigenous art and use of materials that he finds locally -- like the whiskey bottle caps that he uses for his tapestries -- and he puts it down to his upbringing which was cut off from traditional Ghanian culture . He was born in the small town of Anyako in the Volta region of Ghana during British rule . The youngest of 32 children ( on his father 's side ) , his mother died when he was a baby and he was brought up in a Presbyterian Mission House by his uncle , a Presbyterian Minister . `` When you 're living in a Mission House , you have everything there , you do n't need to go out and therefore you do n't know too much about indigenous society ... I was kind of isolated from it , '' he said . Even as a boy , he knew he wanted to be an artist : `` I had a kind of calling . '' He went on to study Fine Arts at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi , then an `` unimaginable '' thing to do . At that time , only a few years after Ghana achieved independence from the UK in 1957 , the post-colonial hangover meant El Anatsui studied a British-style curriculum , only covering European art . Read related : Chinese sculptor Xiang Jing 's painful search for truth . He felt strongly that he wanted to know something about his own indigenous culture . `` Having been estranged from it and exposed to art being produced in Europe and Asia , I was wondering why we did n't have art as well , '' he said . He remembers coming across a national cultural center in Kumasi and there began to discover Ghana 's `` very interesting art forms . '' They included `` adrinka , '' a series of ideograms or graphic symbols that represent aphorisms . It reminded El Anatsui of the European quest in science during the Renaissance to use symbols to represent abstract concepts . The similarity gave him `` quite a shock , '' and was the catalyst for his exploration of his native culture -- and his attempts to , as he puts it , `` indigenize my consciousness . '' He started using materials from his local environment , recyclables like the bottle caps . `` A lot of people call them waste , but to me they are not waste ... There are people who collect these things , smash them and make them into utensils like big cooking pots , '' he said . Read related : South African rugby legend : Sport can unify a nation . The bottle tops in his flowing , shimmering installations also have a deeper meaning . He says they are meant to act as a reminder that African slaves were exchanged for European liquor during the transatlantic slave trade . While the fluidity of the sculptures are meant to reflect the unsteady relationship between Europe , Africa and America . Despite the deep affinity El Anatsui has for homegrown African culture , he resists being called an African artist . `` I do n't know any ( artist ) who wants to be geographically categorized only . Artists want to be known only as artists , '' he says . He says that when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York first acquired his art , it was for their African Galleries and only later for their Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries . This `` raises so many questions as to what precisely I am -- am I an African artist or an artist ? '' he asks , adding it is high time museums `` revisited their categorizations . '' He adds : `` An artist in India is the same as an artist in Africa , Ghana , Japan or America . '' Another thing he does n't want to be prescriptive about is how his work is hung in galleries . He sends his work out with no instructions leaving it up to the curators to decide how to install it . At first they are confused but eventually they discover `` they themselves are also artists , '' he says . `` It 's a versatile form . I think an art form should be a replica of life itself -- life is not something which is cut and fixed -- it is constantly changing . ''
Renaissance is an internationally renowned Ghanaian artist who lives and works in New York . He is known for monumental sculptures using recycled waste that he collects in Nigeria . He is considered to be one of the foremost contemporary artists of his generation . Largest ever installation `` Broken Bridge II '' on display at the Venice Biennale in Nigeria .