William KentridgeI am not me, the horse is not mine
From 18 September 2026 to 7 March 2027, Bozar presents I am not me, the horse is not mine, a major exhibition devoted to William Kentridge (Johannesburg, b. 1955), one of the most influential artists of our time. Spanning more than four decades of artistic practice, from the early 1980s to today, the exhibition brings together drawing, animated film, sculpture, printmaking, installation and video, with particular attention to several of his major stage productions. The exhibition highlights the performative and collaborative nature of Kentridge’s practice, revealing how art becomes a space for political inquiry, historical reckoning and poetic transformation.
Taking over one of Bozar’s major exhibition circuits of ten galleries, Kentridge also creates site-specific works for the occasion, such as the monumental Ubu wall drawing or the tribute to the late South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo (on Bozar’s stairs).
September also marks the start of a wider collaboration: William Kentridge is Bozar’s first Grand Invité. Throughout the ‘26-‘27 season, his work and ideas resonate across the Centre for Fine Arts through his exhibition, but also performances, concerts, talks and collaborations with a new generation of artists. The Centre for the Less Good Idea, an artistic workshop co-founded by Bronwyn Lace and William Kentridge in 2016 in Johannesburg, will be at the heart of this creative effervescence.
William Kentridge began his artistic career at the height of the political struggle against the apartheid regime in his native South Africa. His work bears witness to a profound commitment – at once social, political and poetic – that continues to shape his artistic practice to this day. Firmly rooted in the history of South Africa, it opens onto broader reflections on human history, its contradictions, recurring violence and capacity for transformation.
Over more than four decades, Kentridge has developed an artistic language in which images, ideas and forms are continuously set in motion. Drawing becomes animation; animation enters an installation or migrates onto the stage; images and objects reappear in new configurations. This constant transformation and shape-shifting across media has become one of the defining characteristics of his practice.
William Kentridge observes:
The absurd also provides Kentridge with a way of confronting political and historical realities that resist straightforward explanation.
William Kentridge notes: “The absurd is, in a way, a form of realism. When the world itself is irrational, describing it in purely rational terms can be misleading. Absurdity follows flawed logic to its extreme conclusions, revealing the underlying contradictions.”
From his early engagement with Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi to his exploration of Gogol’s The Nose, absurdity exposes the contradictions underlying apparently rational systems.
At the centre of Kentridge’s practice is his Johannesburg studio, which the exhibition at Bozar evokes both spatially and conceptually. It is a place of drawing and experimentation, but also of rehearsals, editing, fabrication and design. “At the centre is still the drawing space, which remains a solitary activity” says Kentridge “Beyond that, the work is deeply collaborative, artistically and conceptually.”
As shown in the exhibition, from the individual starting point of Kentridge’s drawings, the work expands into a collaborative process involving actors, musicians, singers, designers, visual artists, editors and technicians.
I am not me, the horse is not mine translates this movement between studio, stage and exhibition space into a substantial journey through Kentridge’s oeuvre. The exhibition starts and ends with spaces evoking his studio. Between them, works produced during the creation of several major stage productions unfold in a deliberately non-chronological sequence.
Rather than a conventional retrospective, curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh has conceived the exhibition as a musical score in several movements, inspired by the hybrid forms, shifts of rhythm and compositional structures of Kentridge’s stage productions.
“This exhibition unfolds as a musical composition” Abou El Fetouh explains, “weaving together William Kentridge’s drawings, animations, and stage works into a dynamic, non-linear journey”. He adds: “The boundaries between mediums dissolve, histories intertwine, inviting us to experience art as inquiry, memory, and poetic possibility.”
For Kentridge, Brussels is far from unfamiliar territory. His relationship with the city stretches back more than thirty years, and Brussels has witnessed the genesis, early touring and premieres of several of his productions. In 1995, the city hosted the premiere of his now legendary Faustus in Africa!. Three years later, in 1998, Bozar presented Kentridge’s first institutional solo exhibition in Europe.
His return in 2026 therefore carries particular resonance: I am not me, the horse is not mine continues – and reassembles – a longstanding artistic relationship.
The exhibition is a co-production of Bozar and ΕΜΣΤ, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens where it will be presented from June until December 2027.
Support: Ministry Foreign Affaires / Uhoda
Installation Images
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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