A master draughtsman, illustrator, filmmaker and sculptor, William Kentridge is also a prolific theatre-maker who has collaborated with local theatre groups and world-renowned opera houses for more than four decades. His practice encompasses theatrical, musical and operatic projects with visual components that appear and reappear in different articulations. Centring around the human condition, his multifaceted imagery is often interwoven with the social, political and economic realities of South Africa.
'A Shadow of a Shadow' is a survey of 17 performances created by Kentridge from the late 1980s to the present, from his interpretations of King Ubu—the outrageous protagonist from Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi [King Ubu] (1896)—and Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, to Kentridge’s original works such as The Head and the Load (2018) about Africa and Africans in World War I. On view are objects and artworks produced for the development and presentation of these performance projects: drawings, stage backdrops, animations, puppets, props, costumes and installations inspired by theatrical illusions.
