William KentridgeA Nicely Built City
Preview: Thursday 24 September from 6pm at Goodman Gallery London
Goodman Gallery presents the global premiere of South African artist and theatre director William Kentridge’s new stop-animation film, A Nicely Built City (Never Resists Destruction), the twelfth film in his globally acclaimed cycle of Drawings for Projection (1989–ongoing). The film forms part of a wide-ranging presentation of new drawings, sculptures and editioned works on paper linked to two major projects, shown together in the gallery’s London gallery under the title A Nicely Built City.
Artist Bio
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. Following this, in October, MUBI presented the New York premiere of *William Kentridge’s Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot*.
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*) presented a collection of major works, some of which had not previously been seen in Europe.
Kentridge’s largest UK survey to date was held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2022. An iteration of the exhibition opened at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in May 2024. In the same year, Kentridge opened another major survey exhibition, *In Praise of Shadows*, at The Broad, Los Angeles. In 2023, the exhibition travelled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
In 2025, he presented *The Pull of Gravity* at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, marking the first museum presentation outside South Africa to focus on his sculpture.
Most recently, he opened *The Battle Between YES and NO* at Kunsthalle Praha, his first major exhibition in Czechia.
Kentridge’s work has been exhibited internationally since the 1990s, including at Kunsthalle Praha (2026); Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (2025); Museum Folkwang (2025); 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; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2015); Kunstmuseum Basel (2019); and Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2019). The artist has also participated in major biennales, including Documenta, Kassel (1997, 2002, 2012) and the Venice Biennale (1993, 1999, 2005, 2013, 2015).
Public 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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