William KentridgePreparing The Flute
In 2005, Goodman Gallery presented William Kentridge: Preparing the Flute, an exhibition offering a rare glimpse into the artist’s creative process behind his acclaimed production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Commissioned by La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, the full-scale opera debuted in April of that year and later toured internationally.
The exhibition also featured a selection of the artist’s preparatory drawings, storyboards, and animation fragments that shaped the visual language of the opera. Together, these elements highlighted Kentridge’s fluid movement between drawing, animation, and theatre.
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Kentridge's multidisciplinary practice has earned him significant international recognition. Since his participation in Documenta X (1997), his work has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego). A travelling survey of his work circulated through Europe between 1998 and 1999, and another toured the United States and South Africa in 2001.
In 1999, Kentridge received the Carnegie Medal at the Carnegie International, followed by the Goslar Kaiserring in 2003 for his contribution to contemporary art. In 2004, a new survey exhibition of his work began its international tour, including venues in Turin, Düsseldorf, Sydney, Montreal, and Johannesburg. At the time of Preparing the Flute, Kentridge was also working on a major commission for the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, set to open later in 2005.
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.
