William Kentridge at the Goodman Gallery, opening June 4th, 2005
Late April this year sees the Brussels opening of William Kentridge’s interpretation of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, a production commissioned by La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, which will also travel to several other cities – with luck including Johannesburg. For his exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg (entitled ‘Preparing the Flute’), opening June 4th, Kentridge brings the Brussels theatre in miniature (the working model used in preparation for the opera) into the gallery. Animated sequences from the full-scale production of The Magic Flute will be projected on screens inside the theatre, in similar fashion to the way they will appear on the real stage. Alongside this mini-theatre, the exhibition will include many of the working drawings and fragments used in creating animation for The Magic Flute.
William Kentridge has throughout his career moved between film, drawing and theatre. Since participating in Dokumenta X in Kassel in 1997, solo shows of Kentridge’s work have been hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and MCA San Diego, and during 1998 and 1999 a survey exhibition of his work was seen in Brussels, Munich, Barcelona, London, Marseille and Graz. In 1999 he was awarded the Carnegie Medal at the Carnegie International 1999/2000. 2001 saw the launch of a survey show of Kentridge’s in Washington, traveling thereafter to New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Cape Town. A shadow oratorio, Confessions of Zeno, was created for Documenta XI in 2002; and in October 2003 Kentridge received the Goslar Kaisserring in recognition of his contribution to contemporary art. January 2004 marked the opening of a new survey exhibition which travels to museums in Turin, Düsseldorf, Sydney, Montreal and Johannesburg. Current projects include a commission for the Berlin Guggenheim, to open in October 2005.
William Kentridge (b.1955, South Africa) is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre and opera productions.
Kentridge’s work is held in collections including MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi and Zeitz MoCAA, Cape Town.
Kentridge’s largest UK survey to date was held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2022. In the same year Kentridge opened another major survey exhibition, In Praise of Shadows, at The Broad, Los Angeles. In 2023 this exhibition travelled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Kentridge’s work has been seen in museums across the globe since the 1990s, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Albertina Museum, Vienna: Musée du Louvre in Paris, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; Reina Sofia museum, Madrid, Kunstmuseum in Basel; and Norval Foundation in Cape Town. The artist has also participated in biennale’s including Documenta in Kassel (2012, 2002,1997) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2005, 1999, 1993).
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