Art Exhibition: William Kentridge: Five Themes at MoMA

William Kentridge: Five Themes

February 24–May 17, 2010

MoMA describes the exhibit as large-scale and surveys nearly three decades of work by William Kentridge (born 1955, South Africa), a remarkably versatile artist whose work combines the political with the poetic. Dealing with subjects as sobering as apartheid, colonialism, and totalitarianism, his work is often imbued with dreamy, lyrical undertones or comedic bits of self-deprecation that render his powerful messages both alluring and ambivalent. Best known for animated films based on charcoal drawings, he also works in prints, books, collage, sculpture, and the performing arts. This exhibition explores five primary themes in Kentridge’s art from the 1980s to the present, and underscores the inter relatedness of his mediums and disciplines, particularly through a selection of works from the Museum’s collection. Included are works related to the artist’s staging and design of Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Nose,which premieres at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in March 2010.

Drawing from Stereoscope 1998–99. Charcoal, pastel, and colored pencil on paper