Angaza Africa coincides with the launch of Channel 4’s latest “4” logo, a 50-foot construction by the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, made from recycled printers’ plates. His best-known work is part of a group show of African artists, which makes a timely intrusion into the media frenzy over Indian and Chinese artists.

This elegant, elegiac showcase reveals how African artists come to conceptualism from different values and references, often involving traditional methods and materials which are categorised as “craft” rather than mainstream art. El Anatsui presents a trademark hanging, constructed from thousands of shimmering bottletops stapled together into sheets reminiscent of Ghanaian Kente cloth and even Gustave Klimt’s mosaics of colour.

The Benin artist, Romuald Hazoumé exploits the symbolic potential of plastic petrol cans. Photographs of bloated cans (heated to expand capacity) tied to motor bikes like balloons document their use in Nigeria to transport gasoline illegally over the border — a comment on the poverty surrounding the international oil industry. Earlier works converted single cans into painted masks which connect back to the traditional Benin sculptures which influenced French Cubists.

An appliquéd hanging, Gris-Gris blancs, by the Malian Abdoulaye Konaté, plays with Western sensibilities. A soft cream seersucker sheet, draped with small, stuffed charms (gris-gris) inspired by the fetish objects carried by hunter-healers, is transformed into a tasteful, Western decoration fit for any loft apartment while also signifiying Mali’s belief system.

Following clear lines through Western abstraction, South Africa’s Karel Nel arranges huge woody leaves of Coco de Mer palm in abstract designs, the crude staples anchoring the leaves lending a pleasing vernacular rawness.

This stimulating exhibition coincides with the publication of Angaza Africa, African Art Now by Chris Spring (Thames & Hudson), an excellent companion to this complex work which waits in the wings to explode onto the market.

Until 28 June (020 7242 7367, www.octobergallery.co.uk).