A

Review

of

William

Kentridge's

'The

Pull

of

Gravity'

at

Yorkshire

Sculpture

Park

studio international's Tom Denman shares his reflections on William Kentridge's first major sculpture exhibition outside of South Africa—'The Pull of Gravity' on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

The first works one encounters originated as kinetic sculptures in Kentridge’s 2012 performance 'Refuse the Hour'; here they are props initiating the theatrics of our immersion. 'Bicycle Wheel III (double megaphone)' (2012) consists of a pair of megaphones attached to a wheel atop a system of chains and handles and a wooden tripod with castors, setting a tone of ruleless, alchemical play. In what is the first UK institutional show dedicated to Kentridge’s sculpture, the three-dimensional emphasis – with all these strangely personable things that come to life – prompts us to join the artist in a semi-collaborative act of magical worldbuilding. To this never-quite-final end, material and imaginary are constantly competing – not least in 'Ladder Horse' (2023), an equine sculpture seemingly made from a dismantled stepladder, metal clamps and cardboard but which is in fact a bronze cast painted to trick the eye.