Special Exhibition
William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows
Nov 12 - Apr 09, 2023

Overview

William Kentridge’s first monograph presentation at The Broad and his first major exhibition in Los Angeles in two decades will feature more than 130 works in an engaging and interactive design by Belgian designer Sabine Theunissen. Surveying 35 years of the celebrated South African artist’s practice, this landmark exhibition includes all 18 works from the Broad collection with substantial loans from across the United States and South Africa. Curated by Ed Schad, the exhibition is organized both thematically and chronologically throughout the museum’s first-floor galleries. A highlight of the exhibition is The Broad collection’s 30-minute five-channel video and multimedia installation The Refusal of Time (2012). 

Kentridge grew up in Apartheid-era Johannesburg, and he has continued to live there throughout his life. His studio practice is inherently collaborative and expansive, spanning drawing, filmmaking, printmaking, sculpture, theater, opera, and installation. In addition to key drawings, sculptures, prints, and tapestries featured at The Broad, the artist’s 11 Drawings for Projection films will be on view, as well as a series of films that reflect on early cinema, including 7 Fragments for Georges Méliès, Day for Night, and Journey to the Moon (all 2003), a suite of nine short films that prominently feature the artist himself and celebrate the artist’s studio as a site of experimentation and associative play.

Many recent drawings will be shown that were created for his monumental performance project The Head & the Load (2018), which unearth the neglected histories of Africans and Africa in World War I. Important early works rarely or never before seen in the United States—such as Domestic Scenes (1980) (54 etchings tied to Kentridge's work in theater) the Art in a State of Grace, Art in a State of Hope, Art in a State of Siege (all 1988)—show Kentridge’s long-lasting political engagement, upholding artistry and the creative act as its own form of transformative knowledge.

 

FREE ADMISSION TO WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS

Receive free access to William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows every Thursday evening from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The museum is closed on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 24. Tickets for each month are released on the last Monday of the previous month. Reserve free advance tickets. 

Image credit: Still from William Kentridge, Stereoscope, 1999. Film with sound transferred to Betacam and DVD. The Broad Art Foundation. © William Kentridge


know before you go

Tickets are $18 for adults, $12 for students (with valid student ID), and free for children 17 and under.

Tickets include same-day access to The Broad’s third floor galleries, which feature a frequently changing selection of works from the Broad collection. Tickets do not include access to events that require separate reservations or Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), which can be booked separately here.

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Highlighted Artwork

William Kentridge
2012
five-channel video installation with sound; four steel megaphones; breathing machine
William Kentridge
2013
single channel HD video
William Kentridge
2011
35 mm film transferred to DVD and hard drive; 9 min 54 sec looped, with sound
Dimensions variable
William Kentridge
1999
film with sound transferred to Betacam and DVD
William Kentridge
2011
35 mm film transferred to DVD and hard drive; 9 min 54 sec looped, with sound
Dimensions variable
William Kentridge
2011
charcoal and colored pencil on on paper
36 1/4 x 44 7/8 in. (92.08 x 113.98 cm)
William Kentridge
2011
charcoal and colored pencil on paper
39 3/8 x 47 5/8 in. (100.01 x 120.97 cm)
William Kentridge
2011
charcoal and colored pencil on on paper
17 3/8 x 17 1/4 in. (44.13 x 43.82 cm)
William Kentridge
2011
charcoal, colored pencil and found ledger paper on paper
22 1/2 x 31 in. (57.15 x 78.74 cm)
William Kentridge
2011
charcoal and colored pencil on on paper
17 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (45.09 x 60.33 cm)
William Kentridge
1991
16mm animated film
William Kentridge
1990
16mm animated film
William Kentridge
1998
charcoal and colored chalks on on paper
24 x 63 in. (60.96 x 160.02 cm)
William Kentridge
1998
charcoal and colored chalks on on paper
24 x 63 in. (60.96 x 160.02 cm)
William Kentridge
1998
charcoal and colored chalks on on paper
13 x 63 in. (33.02 x 160.02 cm)
William Kentridge
1998
charcoal and colored chalks on on paper
15 x 63 in. (38.1 x 160.02 cm)
Art in a State of Grace, Art in a State of Hope, Art in a State of Siege
William Kentridge
1988
Silkscreen on velin d’arches creme and brown paper
Each 63 x 39 inches (160 x 100 cm)
Drawing for Ursonate (fümms böwö tää)
William Kentridge
1988
Composite of charcoal and pastel on found encyclopedia pages
Paper: 10 1/8 x 7 5/8 inches (25.7 x 19.4 cm) (each); Overall mounted: 30 11/16 x 60 5/8 inches (78 x 154 cm)
Singer Trio
William Kentridge
2018
Singer sewing machines, four breast drills, antique wooden rulers, mild steel, aluminum, wood, electronics
64 x 69 x 19 inches (163 x 176 x 50 cm)

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