Born in South Africa, artist William Kentridge has worked as a writer, director, stage designer, puppeteer, and actor. After the age of 30, he began to integrate his theatrical ambitions into a new interest in painting and artistic creation. Over decades of creation, he no longer limits himself to the types of media, but through forms such as film, performance, theater, painting, sculpture, oil painting, and printmaking, he attempts to understand the world and reshape various historical stories.
During the month of March, audiences will have the opportunity to see this versatile artist’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, “The Weight of Tears,” at Hauser & Wirth. The exhibition title is taken from a new piece of the same name, a 6-meter-wide triptych featuring a collage of an African map and historical documents as the background, with silhouetted figures marching forward. The phrase “The Weight of Tears” has appeared repeatedly in Kentridge’s work, constantly cycling and evolving.
右：《梯馬》William Kentridge 2021 Wood 150 x 155 x 78 cm © William Kentridge
The silhouette of the figure in the tapestry “Colleoni” is a 15th-century Venetian doge and mercenary. The equestrian image vividly reflects his understanding of the male heroic image – as long as the man is placed on horseback, with a pedestal underneath, the glorious and majestic image of the man can be displayed – as well as the subsequent collapse, decay, and destruction of these monuments.
The “Ladder Horse” is assembled from wooden materials, not only simplifying the form, but also, like the tapestry “Colleoni”, questioning heroism through the image of a horse.
One of the sculptures is an enlarged interpretation of the work “Cursive” which includes 40 small bronze sculptures. These characters together form the three-dimensional vocabulary of the artist’s work. Initially, these images appeared in the form of pen strokes and paper cuts on dictionary pages. The artist transformed the images of characters and symbols into sculptures, exploring different arrangements and progressive relationships on the bookshelf.
The 2020 visual work “Female Prophet” brings together many characters, symbols, and phrases that run through the exhibition, flashing on flipping pages and accompanied by a strong soundtrack. The image of the worker reappears in cyanotype. Tree patterns, dancing female prophets, smeared pages, household items, and abstract shapes are interspersed with hand-drawn leaves. The text of the video is taken from an opera script, including poems adapted from African proverbs by the poet, as well as lines specifically created for the opera.
“The dawn will break more than once”, “Things are different from what we imagine”, “Where is our hope?”, “You will never see that city” – these sentences appear and then disappear, like a prophet answering our questions.
Feel free to visit the exhibition and see how this artist combines their life experiences and historical knowledge to transform them into multimedia works with unique stories.
Image source and learn more: Hauser & Wirth
