hard ground, soft ground, aquatint, drypoint and engraving on Fabriano Rosapina Bianco 220 gsm paper

Artwork date: 1996/7
Signature details: each signed and numbered 10/50 in pencil in the margin

(8)

image size: 24.5 x 29.5 cm each; framed size: 53.5 x 57 x 2.5 cm each

Provenance:

Handspring Puppet Company.

Acquired directly from the artist.

Exhibited:

Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work, 25 August 2019 to 23 March 2020, examples of the same edition exhibited.; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Insights, February 27 to November 28, 2004, Artist Proofs exhibited.; National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, Recent Acquisitions and Promised Gifts, 18 October 2002 to 5 January 2003, Artist Proofs exhibited.; South African National Gallery, Cape Town, William Kentridge, 7 December 2002 to 23 March 2003, examples of the same edition exhibited.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, William Kentridge, 21 July to 6 October 2002, examples of the same edition exhibited.; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, William Kentridge, 1 March to 5 May 2002, examples of the same edition exhibited.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, William Kentridge, 20 October 2001 to 20 January 2002, examples of the same edition exhibited.; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, William Kentridge, 3 June to 16 September 2001, examples of the same edition exhibited.; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, William Kentridge, 28 February to 13 May 2001.

Literature:

Christian, S. & McIlleron, A. (eds). (2019). Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work. Cape Town: Zeitz MOCAA, examples of a different edition illustrated in colour on pp.236-239.; Tone, L. (ed.). (2013). William Kentridge: Fortuna. London: Thames & Hudson, the complete suite of the same edition illustrated in colour on pp.242-243.; Sittenfeld, M. (ed.). (2001). William Kentridge. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art & New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, examples of the same edition illustrated in colour on pp.116-117.; Cameron, D., Christov-Bakargiev, C. & Coetzee, JM. (1999). William Kentridge. London: Phaidon Press Limited, examples of the same edition illustrated in colour on p.32.; Kentridge, W. (1997). Ubu: +/- 101: William Kentridge, Robert Hodgins, Deborah Bell. Braamfontein: French Institute of South Africa, Act IV Scene 7 illustrated on the front cover, the complete suite is illustrated in colour and black and white on pp.11, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 23.

Notes:

This highly skilled suite of eight etchings was created as a part of an unprecedented series of interconnected works William Kentridge produced in the late 1990s, based on French dramatist Alfred Jarry’s infamous character, Ubu Roi. Kentridge conceptualised a number of visual narratives based on Ubu in a South African context, which included etchings, animated films, a series of larger drawings, a multimedia installation work and a theatre production by the Handspring Puppet Company.

The play Ubu Roi was written by Jarry in 1888. It was a satirical expression of the way in which arbitrary power can engender madness. Ubu was portrayed as “a ridiculous but devastating despot, who was also a licentious libertine, an emblem of the clumsy and brutal deeds done in the service of a calculating state”.

The character inspired numerous artists and writers and the approach lead to the development of a new genre – the Theatre of the Absurd [1].

In South Africa, Kentridge’s Ubu can be viewed as a powerful metaphor for the insane policy of Apartheid, presented by the state as a rational system.

Sarah Sinisi

[1] [Online] William Kentridge’s Ubu Projects, written by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, 1998 [Available at https://www.kentridge.studio/william-kentridges-ubu-projects/]