William Kentridge / "Zeno Writing" and "Automatic Writing" / 2003
The Goodman Gallery looks forward to hosting an exhibition of new work by William Kentridge. On the day of the opening, Saturday 1st March, the gallery will have extended hours from 09h30 – 17h00. The exhibition closes Saturday 29th March at 16h00.
We will be showing his newest film, Zeno Writing, along with drawings from the film, new graphics and sculpture. Zeno Writing was made in conjunction with Confessions of Zeno, a theatrical multimedia performance done for Documenta 11. Confessions of Zeno was done as a collaboration with The Handspring Puppet Company, Kevin Volans, The Duke Quartet and Dawid Minnaar.
‘The film piece is based on Italo Svevo’s 1923 novel of the same name, Zeno is a prisoner of his own intelligence, who psychoanalyses himself in a fictive dialogue with his analyst, fretting in a stream-of-consciousness narrative about the constant need to take a stance in the politically troubled society that exists after World War I. By resituating Zeno’s Trieste in the suburbs of 1980’s Johannesburg, Kentridge explores once again the intricacies of growing up and living as a white South African under apartheid. In self-reflecting ventures, the artist experiences the landscapes of the human mind and the spaces and places that are neither neutral nor natural through the medium of drawing.’ – Documenta 11 Catalogue.
Artworks
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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