Art Of The Day Weekly
#498 - from 18 January 2018 to 24 January 2018
View of a room with the puppets of Woyzeck in the Highveld, photo Joaquín Cortes / Roman Lores, photo archive Museo Reina Sofía, 2017.
Kentridge, a born performer
MADRID – What are those large wooden puppets, placed on a podium? They are the actors of a surprising Woyzeck on the Highveld, adapted from the play by Büchner, with settings and passions from South Africa. What are those charcoal drawings of antique temples? That is the setting of an opera by Monteverdi (The Return of Ulysses) given in Brussels. And what are these prints and eight short films? Those are part of his wide project on Gogol’s The Nose. The art of William Kentridge, born in 1955 in Johannesburg, is as varied as his life has been. He studied political science, was a precocious theater director, went to Paris to study with mime Jacques Lecoq, and today he is one of the most committed artists in theater. First he was against apartheid, and today he is against all forms of injustice that man continuously inflicts on others. Fortunately we still have literature! Goethe’s Faust and Jarry’s Ubu are also influences he has exploited. This exhibition, one of the rare ones dedicated to him in Spain, and the first on his theater work, underlines his passion for the written word.
• William Kentridge. Basta y sobra, at the Reina Sofia museum, until 19 March 2018.