William Kentridge in Venice

(REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo Il Ritorno di Ulisse

The Teatro La Fenice has collaborated with the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa for many years, hosting videos by contemporary artists in its stage space. In 2008 it is the turn of William Kentridge (Johannesburg 1955), one of the key protagonists of the international arts scene. This exceptional event will also feature the support of illycaffè, which in this way celebrates its 75th anniversary.

The event will be accompanied by a monograph entitled (REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo, published by Charta – Milan, with texts by the curator of the programme, Francesca Pasini, the South African critic Jane Taylor, Angela Vettese, president of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, and William Kentridge.

The event, curated by Francesca Pasini, will take place on three different days in three different venues:

Il Ritorno di Ulisse, by Claudio Monteverdi, production directed by William Kentridge, revival of production directed by Luc de Wit, with the Ricercar Consort orchestra and the Handspring Puppets Company. Already presented abroad, this is the first performance in Italy. The perfomances are scheduled for Friday 28th and Saturday 29th November at 7pm at the Teatro Malibran venue.

On Sunday 30th November at 11.30am William Kentridge's solo exhibition (REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo, will open, featuring works created especially for the occasion: the installation of three videos entitled: Breathe, Return, Dissolve, and seven sculptures, several drawings, litography, all related to the creation of the film. The images, revolving 360° and seen from above their own shadow, pass from a state of random fragmentation to a point of cohesion in which the figure takes on a recognisable physiognomy and then, in keeping with the musical term, 'da capo', changes, disintegrating, exploding, starting over again on a new trajectory. And, as Kentridge himself writes, "...there is a central logic behind the whole project, it is the argument of the fragility of coherence, in which the coherence and disintegration of images refers also to other fragilities and breaks. All the sections of the project are about anti-entropy, a gathering out of chaos to order, rather than a reversion from order to a state of dispersal."

The exhibition venue is Palazzetto Tito, home of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in San Barnaba. The exhibition will remain open until 16th January 2009.

On Sunday 30th November from 1.15pm until 7.45pm, the Teatro La Fenice will host the first showing of the video (REPEAT) from the beginning / Da Capo, in the specific version created by William Kentridge only for Venice and only to be projected onto the safety curtain of the stage. From 9th December, a screening of the work will precede the rehearsals and all the performances of the double bill I pagliacci by Leoncavallo and Von Heute auf Morgen by Schoenberg, with which La Fenice is to close its opera season.

William Kentridge in Venice