William Kentridge(Repeat) From The Beginning
In his first solo exhibition in Cape Town since his celebrated retrospective at Iziko South African National Gallery in 2002, William Kentridge shows a new body of projections, sculptures, drawings and prints at Goodman Gallery Cape. Commissioned to produce a new video for the fire screen of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Kentridge has developed an extraordinary method of drawing in three dimensions where the image, once set in motion, coalesces into sculptural form.
Dissolve uses the instability of water to hold and break images. Return uses three dimensional sculptural objects which revolve into and out of coherence.
Artworks
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The pieces were originally conceived for the La Fenice opera house in Venice, and Philip Miller has constructed the music using the sound of an orchestra tuning, and a singer, Nokrismesi Skota, singing an aria. The aria was recorded using a cellphone – using a contemporary, ubiquitous device to produce a sound that is reminiscent of a very early recording. The singer can be seen making the actual recording, in the film Dissolve. The sculptures and drawings in the main body of the gallery were executed to make the film Return.
They are anti-sculptures, sculptures that only make sense as flat images. The artist’s book Breathe was printed by Mark Attwood, who de-constructed the original book drawn by William Kentridge, then remade it. Gerhard Marx collaborated in making the sculptures and Catherine Meyburgh edited the videos.
The artist wishes to acknowledge the participation of others in making the work for this exhibition. The parallel exhibition to this is housed at the Iziko South African National Gallery, and presents work relating to the Gogol short story The Nose. In the gallery here are sculptures and prints that relate to the work at ISANG, and there are inevitably pieces that bridge the gap between the two projects.
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.
