William KentridgeThat Which We Do Not Remember
That Which We Do Not Remember marks the year-end at Goodman Gallery Cape Town. This solo exhibition presents major new work by William Kentridge, spanning two recent opera productions, Lulu and Wozzeck, and several projects in between.
The exhibition gives unique insight into Kentridge’s prolific practice and intricately interconnected projects over the past two years, bringing together drawings, prints, sculpture, tapestries, a kinetic model theatre as well as a 360° virtual reality film – many of which are rooted in Kentridge’s distinctive charcoal drawing. While some works will debut in South Africa, others have recently shown abroad and will be accessible to local audiences for the first time.
The opera delves into the tormented life of a homicidal soldier and is characterised by bleak landscapes, denuded of their trees and scarred by shell craters.
As Wozzeck ’s creative director, Kentridge drew inspiration from documentary photographs that depict the ravaged battlefields of Flanders. For Kentridge, an opera must ‘meet a material for it to take fire - with Wozzeck, it’s the roughness of charcoal drawing. So all of the projections are made out of charcoal drawings and there’s something in the graininess of the drawing itself that echoes the music, but also with the world that it’s depicting – of things transforming, of sounds under the earth.’
The title of the exhibition is drawn from one of a new series of prints, titled Blue Rubrics (a continuation of Kentridge’s 2012 Rubrics print series). Here, ‘rubric’ refers to instructions printed in prayer books, conventionally in red ink. However, in this instance, words and phrases are printed in striking lapis lazuli-based pigment. Kentridge perceives these phrases as ‘a prod, a goad to the activity of thinking, of understanding how we have to make sense of the world from contradictory fragments.’
The opera delves into the tormented life of a homicidal soldier and is characterised by bleak landscapes, denuded of their trees and scarred by shell craters.
As Wozzeck ’s creative director, Kentridge drew inspiration from documentary photographs that depict the ravaged battlefields of Flanders. For Kentridge, an opera must ‘meet a material for it to take fire - with Wozzeck, it’s the roughness of charcoal drawing. So all of the projections are made out of charcoal drawings and there’s something in the graininess of the drawing itself that echoes the music, but also with the world that it’s depicting – of things transforming, of sounds under the earth.’
The title of the exhibition is drawn from one of a new series of prints, titled Blue Rubrics (a continuation of Kentridge’s 2012 Rubrics print series). Here, ‘rubric’ refers to instructions printed in prayer books, conventionally in red ink. However, in this instance, words and phrases are printed in striking lapis lazuli-based pigment. Kentridge perceives these phrases as ‘a prod, a goad to the activity of thinking, of understanding how we have to make sense of the world from contradictory fragments.’
That Which We Do Not Remember extends into the Video Room with the kinetic model theatre, Right Into Her Arms, assembled from film material made while developing the production of Lulu. The soundtrack samples fragments of Schoenberg and Webern cabaret songs, as well as Swedish cabaret recordings of the same era and spoken excerpts from Kentridge’s recording of Kurt Schwitter’s Ursonate, which was performed live in New York for Performa 17.
William Kentridge lives and works in Johannesburg. Since the 1990s, his work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world and is held in eminent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Kentridge has participated in the Venice Biennale (1993, 1995, 2005) as well as Documenta X (1997), Documenta XI (2002) and Documenta XIII (2012), among others. His opera productions have been staged at venues such as La Scala in Milan and Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, both in New York, and in collaboration with opera companies such as the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the English National Opera in London, and the New York Metropolitan Opera. This year Kentridge ranked 58th on Art Review’s Power 100 and was the recipient of Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Art. He premiered Wozzeck at the 2017 Salzburg Festival and, concurrent to his Goodman Gallery exhibition, Kentridge has solo shows at The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and at Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges.
Artworks
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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.
