One of the most powerful voices in art today William Kentridge emerged as an artist during the apartheid regime in South Africa. Grounded in the violent absurdity of that period in his country’s history, his artworks draw connections between art, ideology, history and memory. Kentridge’s practice reveals the ways in which ideas and images echo across time and between different cultures.

 

Kentridge’s eight-channel video work I am not me, the horse is not mine is among the artist’s most ambitious moving image works and arguably the most significant work by the artist in an Australian state institution collection. It premiered at the Biennale of Sydney in 2008 and was gifted to the Art Gallery of New South Wales by Anita and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis in 2017.

 

Developed out of research for Kentridge’s production of Dimitri Shostakovich’s 1928 opera The nose, it incorporates stop-motion animation, live action, archival video, and a soundtrack by acclaimed South African composer Philip Miller. The large-scale, eight-screen video installation creates a deeply immersive experience.

 

Kentridge emerged as an artist during the apartheid regime in South Africa. Grounded in the violent absurdity of that period in his country’s history, his artworks draw connections between art, ideology, history and memory. Kentridge’s practice reveals the ways in which ideas and images echo across time and between different cultures.

Enormously influential, Kentridge’s artworks can be found in the collections of major museums around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate, London; Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

In this unprecedented opportunity, regional communities across New South Wales will be able to experience a major work by one of the world’s most celebrated living artists recently gifted to the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The exhibition focuses on a single major collection work – William Kentridge’s I am not me, the horse is not mine – which premiered to critical acclamation at the 16th Biennale of Sydney in 2008. It was then displayed at the Tanks at the UK’s Tate Modern in 2013.