William Kentridge

South African artist William Kentridge has garnered international fame and admiration for performance, sculpture, drawings, and work in many other media, but his most indelible contribution is in animated film. Kentridge makes large-scale charcoal drawings that he erases and redraws continually, adding new elements or transforming one subject into a very different other, filming each subtle shift to animate them, literally giving movement, meaning, and life to the images he creates.

Kentridge’s interest in character and seriality, which is key to understanding his embrace of film, are both derived in part from his considerable experience working in theater. By scripting, directing, acting, and designing the sets, costumes, and posters for dozens of productions from 1975 to the present, Kentridge has become a master of finding the single gesture that sums up an entire personality.

In March, Pacific Operaworks, Seattle’s new chamber opera company, will premiere Kentridge’s staging of the Monteverdi opera, The Return of Ulysses for the West Coast. To complement that momentous event, the Henry Art Gallery presents an array of the artist’s work in visual art, including three of his celebrated films, as well as drawings, prints, sculpture, a performance work (on March 9), and a selection of recent stereoscopic images he produced as photogravures.

William Kentridge is organized for the Henry by Chief Curator Elizabeth Brown. The exhibition is generously supported by Patrons of the Henry Art Gallery. Special thanks to Pacific Operaworks, Lane De Camp, and Greg Kucera, Greg Kucera Gallery.

William Kentridge
Kurator: Elizabeth Brown