Exploring the artistic journey of a renowned American artist, this retrospective delves into the themes of mirroring and doubling that have significantly influenced the creator's work. The book offers a fresh perspective on the artist's iconic pieces, highlighting how these concepts shape both the visual and conceptual aspects of their art. Through insightful analysis, it uncovers the deeper meanings behind the artist's contributions to the art world, making it a compelling read for enthusiasts and scholars alike.
Carlos Basualdo Book order (chronological)
South African artist William Kentridge (b. 1955) has produced an outstanding body of work in multiple mediums―drawings, animations, sculptures, theater and stage design―all of which trace the fraught political and cultural history of South Africa. This book is the first to explore Kentridge’s extraordinary new series of seventeen large-scale tapestries, created under his artistic direction by a team of South African weavers between 2001 and 2007. The tapestries depict shadowy figures that resonate with his collages of itinerant characters set against the weblike backgrounds of 19th-century maps of Europe and Johannesburg. A distinguished group of authors relate the tapestries to the rest of Kentridge’s multifaceted oeuvre, underline the centrality of drawing in his practice, and illuminate the connection between the tapestries and South African geography and history. Together they contribute to an understanding of Kentridge’s tapestries as a precise critical examination of issues surrounding memory and conflict in the context of societies that, while rife with violence, strive for peace and reconciliation.Published in association with the Philadelphia Museum of ArtExhibition Philadelphia Museum of Art (December 12, 2007 – April 6, 2008)