William Kentridge

Works on Paper, 2000-2018

September 3 - October 24, 2024

Opening Reception: “First Thursday,” September 3, 6-8pm
Second Reception: “First Thursday,” October 1, 6-8pm

Greg Kucera Gallery is very pleased to announce our sixth exhibition by William Kentridge, featuring works on paper, including prints and a drawing. Employing techniques such as linocut, pigment print, drypoint, etching, lithography, and charcoal drawing, this exhibition highlights the wide variety of imagery and processes in the artist’s practice. Many of the images are printed onto pages from various books, including early editions of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Encyclopaedia Britannica, making each print unique.

Movie Night: William Kentridge Screening
Wednesday, September 23rd, 6-7:30pm.

Join us for an evening of art and cinema as we explore the world of celebrated South African artist William Kentridge. This event is free.

In conjunction with Seattle Art & Culture Week, we will be screening the feature documentary,  Anything is Possible (55 mins), which provides an intimate look inside Kentridge’s studio practice, creative process, philosophy, and political themes. We will also present a selection of short, hand-drawn charcoal animations from the artist’s famous “drawings for projection” series, which explore themes of memory, time, and history.

Working with great sensitivity and subtlety, Kentridge is among the best of artists who deal with a broad range of political issues—particularly addressing national identities, economic differences, individual and collective responsibilities, and of memory and loss. Although much of his work is inspired by specific events in his native South Africa, Kentridge’s work has a universal significance and speaks to oppression and inequity everywhere. Kentridge wants to call attention to the state of terrorism that was central to apartheid in South Africa, but he also wants us to look beyond that cruelty to an inner landscape where we all wrestle with issues of power and desire, of right and wrong, of guilt and forgiveness.

“I have never tried to make illustrations of apartheid, but the drawings and films are certainly spawned by and feed off the brutalized society left in its wake. I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures, and certain endings; an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay.” –William Kentridge

Work in exhibition