El Anatsui/Turbine Hall review – miracles in gleaming gold made from recycled rubbish

Based in Nigeria, this colossus of contemporary art has cleverly used the natural light of Tate’s Turbine Hall to create a masterpiece poised somewhere between desolation and hope

From a distance it looks ugly and apocalyptic, like a burned-out curtain. But approach the biggest of the three hangings dropping from the heights of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and a miracle begins. What seemed to be dingy and melancholy becomes radiant and weightless, holding and treasuring light from above before releasing it as starshine. Your eyes are kissed by the onrush of colours – gold, bronze, black – all emerging from a complex dance of squares and rectangles that float in the air like spangles of glowing dust.

El Anatsui, the Nigeria-based Ghanaian giant of contemporary art, has created a redemptive masterpiece. This colossal space always had the capacity to be a modern cathedral but few artists commissioned to work here have dared to treat it in such a romantic, ecstatic way. El Anatsui does. His translucent mystical hangings finally give this grey void the stained glass windows it needs.

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