William Kentridge / Preparing The Flute / 2005
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.
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About
William Kentridge
William Kentridge (b. 1955, Johannesburg, South Africa) is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre and opera productions.
In 2024, in Venice, Kentridge premiered a new nine-episode video series SELF-PORTRAIT AS A COFFEE-POT – a site-specific installation curated by long-time collaborator and curator Carolyn Christov Bakargiev at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation. Folowing this, in October, MUBI presented: William Kentridge’s ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot’ Premiere in New York.
In conjunction with the world premiere of his newly commissioned opera The Great Yes, The Great No, which debuted at LUMA Arles in July 2024, the solo exhibition Je n’attends plus (I’m Not Waiting Any Longer) presents a collection of major works, some of which had not been seen in Europe before.
Kentridge’s largest UK survey to date was held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2022. An iteration of Kentridge’s Royal Academy survey opened at the Taipei Museum of Fine Arts in May 2024. 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 Luma Foundation, France (2024); Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation, Venice (2024); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2024); Museum of Modern Art, New York (1999, 2005, 2010); Albertina Museum, Vienna (2010); Musée du Louvre, Paris (2010); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid (2015); Kunstmuseum Basel (2019); Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2019). The artist has also participated in biennale’s including Documenta in Kassel (2012, 2002, 1997) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2005, 1999, 1993).
Collections include: 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 lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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