ART-PRESENTATION: William Kentridge-Thick Time
William Kentridge rose to prominence in the ‘90s with expressive drawings, which he animated in videos. His oeuvre, which covers four decades, has featured different artistic disciplines. For many years, Kentridge has been working successfully on major opera and theater productions. His close relationship with the theater, where he has worked as an actor, producer, set and costume designer, informs his visual art, and vice versa.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Museum der Moderne Salzburg
The exhibition “Thick Time: Installations and Stagings” at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg is presenting a comprehensive survey of William Kentridge’s work. Multimedia installations are on view on the Mönchsberg, while works for theater and opera are being shown for the first time in a dedicated exhibition in the Rupertinum, across the street from the Haus für Mozart, where Kentridge is directing Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck for the Salzburg Festival. A new installation in the Rupertinum atrium will also remain in place for a full year. In the auditorium in the Mönchsberg building a classic work by William Kentridge, the film “10 Drawings for Projection” (1989–2011) made from charcoal drawings, serves as an introduction to the artist’s favorite themes. The large exhibition space showcases seven expansive multimedia installations. The works: “7 Fragments for Georges Méliès, Day for Night and Journey to the Moon” (2003), a homage to the French silent movie pioneer, give an idea of the artist’s method of working. Two of his more recent installations are be on show, “Notes Towards a Model Opera” (2015) about the Cultural Revolution in China and “O Sentimental Machine” (2015), produced for the Istanbul Biennale, about the Turkish exile of the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. In “Second-Hand Reading” (2013) Kentridge presents an early type of film in the form of a flip-book. The exhibition continues with “The Refusal of Time”, a work created for documenta 13 (2012) in Kassel about time as a form of political and social control. The large exhibition room features a procession of moving images on a fifty-meter frieze entitled “More Sweetly Play the Dance” (2016). A selection of tapestries and objects and a reading room with numerous publications by and about William Kentridge round off the exhibition. The stairs leading to the exhibition level provide the setting for a new anamorphic installation created specially for this site, which when viewed from a certain angle becomes a portrait of the Austrian composer Alban Berg. The exhibition in the Rupertinum is dedicated to Kentridge’s exploration of theater and opera, with a separate project being looked at in each room. An installation consisting of black paper figures, made on site by the artist, leads visitors through the atrium to the two exhibition levels. The first room is devoted to early productions in collaboration with the Junction Avenue Theatre Company in Johannesburg, notably “Sophiatown” (1986-89), a play about the Apartheid system. Other highlights include his productions “Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria” by Claudio Monteverdi and “Preparing the Flute” (2004-05), as well as the original stage set for “The Nose” (2010) . The sketches for “Lulu” (2015) provide a link to the current production of Alban Berg’s opera “Wozzeck” for the Salzburg Festival. The kinetic miniature theater “Right Into Her Arms” (2016) is being presented at this exhibition for the first time. The new Wozzeck production also has a separate room devoted to it, and an artist’s studio has been installed in the Franz West Lounge in the Rupertinum, which is open to the public at certain times, enabling visitors to see the finishing touches Kentridge has done to his production, which has its premiere on 8/8/17.
Info: Curators: Sabine Breitwieser, Assistant Curator: Tina Teufel, Consultant Curator for theater: Denise Wendel-Poray, Exhibition Architecture: Sabine Theunissen, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Mönchsberg 32 , Salzburg & Museum der Moderne Rupertinum Salzburg, Wiener-Philharmoniker-Gasse 9, Salzburg, Duration: 29/7-5/11/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Wed 10:00-20:00, www.museumdermoderne.at
