William Kentridge

The Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum has organised a large retrospective of over 60 works by William Kentridge (Johannesburg, 1955).
In the period 2004-2005 the exhibition, produced by the Castello di Rivoli, will travel to the K20 K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the Musée d'Art Contemporain in Montréal and the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

Kentridge's art explores personal and collective memory, as well as the relationship between desire, aesthetics and ethics through works that meditate on pain and conflict in today's contemporary global society. Although the artist has dedicated himself to theatre throughout his career, his primary activities have always been drawing and animation films.


The exhibition at Castello di Rivoli presents a series of works that is representative of the South African artist's entire artistic career, with a focus on recent works such as Sleeping on glass (1999), Procession of shadows (1999), Medicine Cabinet (2000) and Zeno writing (2002). Kentridge also presents new works which are a return to the origins of cinematographic history: 7 Fragments for Georges Méliès and Journey to the Moon (2003), in addition to a new animation film, Tide Table (2003-2004), created especially for the Castello di Rivoli show, in which the character of Soho Eckstein returns. The exhibition catalogue is published by Skira and includes texts by the artist, a critical anthology and new essays by the curator and Jane Taylor, the South African historian and writer.