Lone Wolf
From Drawings for ‘Ubu Tells the Truth’ (In situ wall drawing), 2022
Charcoal and chalk
by William Kentridge
Taken in the Exhibition
In 1994 Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) was elected President of South Africa. The following year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was established to help address the deep wounds left by apartheid.
Jane Taylor, a long-term collaborator with Kentridge, wrote ‘Ubu and the Truth Commission’, a play developed in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company (led by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones), directed by Kentridge, and first performed in 1997 in the Laboratory of the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. The play was based on Alfred Jarry’s absurdist drama ‘Ubu Roi’, first staged in Paris in 1896, entwined with testimony recorded by the TRC.
Kentridge’s animated film, ‘Ubu Tells the Truth’, is constructed from archival footage and animation created for the stage production. Jarry’s protagonist, Père Ubu, becomes Pa Ubu, a member of a police unit charged with controlling anti-state activities such as political protest or membership of an illegal organisation. His wife fears he is having an affair but is relieved to discover he is actually out detaining, torturing and murdering suspected activists instead.
The work is an exposition of the brutal and illegal tactics used by the South African Defence Force and South African Police during apartheid. The film is presented alongside a site-specific wall drawing by the artist. A suite of eight etchings of the same name is shown in the adjacent gallery, with drawing fragments used in making the film.
[Royal Academy]
William Kentridge
(September — December 2022)
The largest exhibition of the artist’s work in the UK to date, ‘William Kentridge’ leads the visitor on an experiential voyage through the last 40 years of his extraordinary career.
William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1955. After graduating in Political Science and African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in 1976, he spent two years studying at the Johannesburg Art Foundation before going to Paris in 1981 to study mime and theatre at the L’Ecole internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq.
Returning to Johannesburg, he continued to work in theatre but also began to concentrate on his art, which included suites of etchings and linocuts, large-scale charcoal drawings and short films.
By the late 1980s his work was gaining recognition outside South Africa, a process accelerated by the end of apartheid and the reopening of the country, which had long been internationally regarded as a pariah state. Since the 1990s, his art and work for stage has been seen in museums, galleries, theatres and opera houses across the world.
While always regarding drawing as his primary practice, Kentridge continues to make prints, sculptures, tapestries and films, and to work on theatrical projects and lectures. His work in theatre has expanded to include both directing operas and creating new operatic pieces in collaboration with composers and performers.
[Royal Academy]
Lone Wolf
From Drawings for ‘Ubu Tells the Truth’ (In situ wall drawing), 2022
Charcoal and chalk
by William Kentridge
Taken in the Exhibition
In 1994 Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) was elected President of South Africa. The following year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was established to help address the deep wounds left by apartheid.
Jane Taylor, a long-term collaborator with Kentridge, wrote ‘Ubu and the Truth Commission’, a play developed in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company (led by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones), directed by Kentridge, and first performed in 1997 in the Laboratory of the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. The play was based on Alfred Jarry’s absurdist drama ‘Ubu Roi’, first staged in Paris in 1896, entwined with testimony recorded by the TRC.
Kentridge’s animated film, ‘Ubu Tells the Truth’, is constructed from archival footage and animation created for the stage production. Jarry’s protagonist, Père Ubu, becomes Pa Ubu, a member of a police unit charged with controlling anti-state activities such as political protest or membership of an illegal organisation. His wife fears he is having an affair but is relieved to discover he is actually out detaining, torturing and murdering suspected activists instead.
The work is an exposition of the brutal and illegal tactics used by the South African Defence Force and South African Police during apartheid. The film is presented alongside a site-specific wall drawing by the artist. A suite of eight etchings of the same name is shown in the adjacent gallery, with drawing fragments used in making the film.
[Royal Academy]
William Kentridge
(September — December 2022)
The largest exhibition of the artist’s work in the UK to date, ‘William Kentridge’ leads the visitor on an experiential voyage through the last 40 years of his extraordinary career.
William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1955. After graduating in Political Science and African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in 1976, he spent two years studying at the Johannesburg Art Foundation before going to Paris in 1981 to study mime and theatre at the L’Ecole internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq.
Returning to Johannesburg, he continued to work in theatre but also began to concentrate on his art, which included suites of etchings and linocuts, large-scale charcoal drawings and short films.
By the late 1980s his work was gaining recognition outside South Africa, a process accelerated by the end of apartheid and the reopening of the country, which had long been internationally regarded as a pariah state. Since the 1990s, his art and work for stage has been seen in museums, galleries, theatres and opera houses across the world.
While always regarding drawing as his primary practice, Kentridge continues to make prints, sculptures, tapestries and films, and to work on theatrical projects and lectures. His work in theatre has expanded to include both directing operas and creating new operatic pieces in collaboration with composers and performers.
[Royal Academy]