William

Kentridge

at

Kunsthalle

Praha:

“Jan

Švankmajer

showed

me

you

don’t

need

to

do

Hollywood

animation”

A new exhibition of work by the major international artist William Kentridge at Kunsthalle Praha looks set to be one of the art events of the year in the Czech capital. Entitled The Battle Between YES and NO, it includes animated films, sculptural works – and a piece dedicated to Franz Kafka created especially for the show. I spoke to the South African-born Kentridge, who is 70, at a press preview.

There’s such a variety of works here. Is there a through line for you?

“Gosh, I think the through line of the exhibition is to be made by people watching it.

“The through line would be the ‘excess of the studio’, the way different projects expand from the studio and meet each other. Images from one project move across and meet and another.

“Bottles and jugs which are sculptures in one room appear in the film about Marseille in another. They reappear in Kafka’s film. The woman doing exercises in the Kafka film goes upstairs [in the gallery] to the Trotsky film.

“So there’s that movement, and it’s very much about the migration of images and sound from one piece to another.”