Press and Editorial
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE - UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE (PARTS 7 - 23)
12 February 2012Bill Gregory
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WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (born 1956 Johannesburg) has emerged over the last fifteen years as one of the most influential artists and thinkers in the world. In March and April this year, William Kentridge is delivering the Norton Lectures at Harvard. The opera The Nose by Shotakovich based on a short story by Gogol that he directed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York premiered to huge acclaim in February 2011. His new theatre based piece ‘The Refusal of Time’ will be featured at Documenta XIII, arguably the most significant exhibition in the contemporary artworld held every five years in Kassel Germany this June. His retrospective exhibition WILLIAM KENTRIDGE; FIVE THEMES opens March 7th at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).
The Annandale exhibition UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE (Parts 7 – 23) is a comprehensive exhibition of new work encompassing all 250 metres of exhibition space at Annandale Galleries. Three films will be on show including one already sold to the National gallery of Australia, Other Faces. New drawings done specifically for this exhibition and relating to the film Other Faces will be on display. The film Anti-Mercator, which relates closely to the artist’s themes on the nature of time will also be on show as well as the series of short films Drawing lessons, shown here for the first time since they were exhibited at the Louvre in 2010.
As John McDonald says in his catalogue essay for this show; ‘In the creation of a major work Kentridge produces many hundreds of smaller pieces. Notebooks are filled with jottings and drawings. Prints and sculptures proliferate. Motifs from earlier works are revived and given new duties. A shadow play or animation may evolve from the clutter - perhaps even a full-scale, multi-media project such as The Refusal of Time.’
The Annandale exhibition Universal Archive (Parts 7- 23) features a body of new work which has come out of the opera and theatre pieces of the last few years as well as pointing the way to new directions and projects. Etchings, linocuts, collages, tapestries, kinetic and bronze sculptures will all be on display and available.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE is the recipient of numerous awards worldwide including the Kyoto Prize (the Japanese Nobel) for lifetime achievment in the arts and philosophy and a number of honourary Doctorates. In 2011, Kentridge was elected as an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and received the degree of Doctor of Literature honoris causa from the University of London.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE has a close affinity with Australia, has relatives here and has visited five times since 1995. His work appears in some depth in all major State galleries in Australia as well as the National Gallery of Australia. Most major contemporary art museums in the USA (Moma, Metropolitan, San Francisco Moma etc) and Europe (Stedelijik, Tate, Pompidouetc) as well as numerous important public and private collections around the world hold his work. Bibliography runs to nearly fifty pages of small print and at least thirty books /hardcover catalogues have been written about his art.
Do not miss this opportunity to see this exhibition, the first full scale show at Annandale since Telegrams From The Nose in 2008. This will be WILLIAM KENTRIDGE’S seventh solo exhibition at ANNANDALE GALLERIES since 1995.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (born 1956 Johannesburg) has emerged over the last fifteen years as one of the most influential artists and thinkers in the world. In March and April this year, William Kentridge is delivering the Norton Lectures at Harvard. The opera The Nose by Shotakovich based on a short story by Gogol that he directed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York premiered to huge acclaim in February 2011. His new theatre based piece ‘The Refusal of Time’ will be featured at Documenta XIII, arguably the most significant exhibition in the contemporary artworld held every five years in Kassel Germany this June. His retrospective exhibition WILLIAM KENTRIDGE; FIVE THEMES opens March 7th at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).
The Annandale exhibition UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE (Parts 7 – 23) is a comprehensive exhibition of new work encompassing all 250 metres of exhibition space at Annandale Galleries. Three films will be on show including one already sold to the National gallery of Australia, Other Faces. New drawings done specifically for this exhibition and relating to the film Other Faces will be on display. The film Anti-Mercator, which relates closely to the artist’s themes on the nature of time will also be on show as well as the series of short films Drawing lessons, shown here for the first time since they were exhibited at the Louvre in 2010.
As John McDonald says in his catalogue essay for this show; ‘In the creation of a major work Kentridge produces many hundreds of smaller pieces. Notebooks are filled with jottings and drawings. Prints and sculptures proliferate. Motifs from earlier works are revived and given new duties. A shadow play or animation may evolve from the clutter - perhaps even a full-scale, multi-media project such as The Refusal of Time.’
The Annandale exhibition Universal Archive (Parts 7- 23) features a body of new work which has come out of the opera and theatre pieces of the last few years as well as pointing the way to new directions and projects. Etchings, linocuts, collages, tapestries, kinetic and bronze sculptures will all be on display and available.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE is the recipient of numerous awards worldwide including the Kyoto Prize (the Japanese Nobel) for lifetime achievment in the arts and philosophy and a number of honourary Doctorates. In 2011, Kentridge was elected as an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and received the degree of Doctor of Literature honoris causa from the University of London.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE has a close affinity with Australia, has relatives here and has visited five times since 1995. His work appears in some depth in all major State galleries in Australia as well as the National Gallery of Australia. Most major contemporary art museums in the USA (Moma, Metropolitan, San Francisco Moma etc) and Europe (Stedelijik, Tate, Pompidouetc) as well as numerous important public and private collections around the world hold his work. Bibliography runs to nearly fifty pages of small print and at least thirty books /hardcover catalogues have been written about his art.
Do not miss this opportunity to see this exhibition, the first full scale show at Annandale since Telegrams From The Nose in 2008. This will be WILLIAM KENTRIDGE’S seventh solo exhibition at ANNANDALE GALLERIES since 1995.