Drawing for The Head & the Load (Tondo III), 2018
Collage of drawings, printed text and red pencil on paper
by William Kentridge
Taken in the Exhibition
During the mid-1990s Kentridge produced ‘Colonial Landscapes’, a series of drawings based on the two volumes of ‘Africa and Its Exploration: As Told by Its Explorers’. Published in London in 1891, this collected the accounts of explorers such as Richard Burton, David Livingstone and Mungo Park with more than 500 plates reflecting the Europeans’ belief in their cultural superiority.
At the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, Africa and its peoples had been divided up between European powers including Germany, France, Great Britain and Belgium. Colonial control was imposed, indigenous inhabitants subjugated and natural resources appropriated, resistance being brutally repressed.
Kentridge’s images of waterfalls and landscapes mimic colonial representations of Africa but lines, posts, and other marks disrupt the idyllic scenes and suggest processes of surveying and mapping as Europeans attempt to possess and control the landscape. These point to the much darker, exploitative aspects of colonial rule and exploration, a suggestion absent from the original images.
Alongside are landscapes that were created for the performance piece ‘The Head & the Load’ (2018). Commissioned to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I, it focussed on the hundreds of thousands of unrecorded Black Africans conscripted as carriers for the European armies. Kentridge highlights this historic injustice, shining a light on the individuals whose contribution to the war effort was erased from the historical record.
Two of Kentridge’s ‘Drawing Lessons’ are presented in this gallery. This on-going series of more than 33 films began in 2009. Like many in the series, the films shown here, set in his studio, present him engaged in animated, often humorous, conversations with himself about his work.
[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]
Drawing for The Head & the Load (Tondo III), 2018
Collage of drawings, printed text and red pencil on paper
by William Kentridge
Taken in the Exhibition
During the mid-1990s Kentridge produced ‘Colonial Landscapes’, a series of drawings based on the two volumes of ‘Africa and Its Exploration: As Told by Its Explorers’. Published in London in 1891, this collected the accounts of explorers such as Richard Burton, David Livingstone and Mungo Park with more than 500 plates reflecting the Europeans’ belief in their cultural superiority.
At the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, Africa and its peoples had been divided up between European powers including Germany, France, Great Britain and Belgium. Colonial control was imposed, indigenous inhabitants subjugated and natural resources appropriated, resistance being brutally repressed.
Kentridge’s images of waterfalls and landscapes mimic colonial representations of Africa but lines, posts, and other marks disrupt the idyllic scenes and suggest processes of surveying and mapping as Europeans attempt to possess and control the landscape. These point to the much darker, exploitative aspects of colonial rule and exploration, a suggestion absent from the original images.
Alongside are landscapes that were created for the performance piece ‘The Head & the Load’ (2018). Commissioned to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I, it focussed on the hundreds of thousands of unrecorded Black Africans conscripted as carriers for the European armies. Kentridge highlights this historic injustice, shining a light on the individuals whose contribution to the war effort was erased from the historical record.
Two of Kentridge’s ‘Drawing Lessons’ are presented in this gallery. This on-going series of more than 33 films began in 2009. Like many in the series, the films shown here, set in his studio, present him engaged in animated, often humorous, conversations with himself about his work.
[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]