William Kentridge, Oh To Believe in Another World (Installation View)
This fall, Marian Goodman opens its gall calendar in New York with a solo exhibition by William Kentridge featuring Oh To Believe in Another World, an immersive five-channel projection made in response to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10. The exhibition marks the North American premiere of the film, which will be shown alongside a multi-disciplinary body of work which includes new bronze sculptures, drawings, collaged lithographs, and mixed-media puppets. Marking the artist’s 19th solo show with the gallery, it also marks 25 years of collaboration between the dealer and artist.
William Kentridge, Oh To Believe in Another World (Installation View)
Like much of Kentridge’s work, the treats history as both subject and material, dwelling in particular here on the notion of history as collage, and exploring four decades of Soviet Union history alongside Shostakovitch’s own life and work, underscoring a complex and evolving political relationship to the country. The composer, initially lauded as the musical front of Soviet values, was denounced twice under Stalin’s rule with the accusation that his compositions violated Soviet restrictions on cultural production, including formal experiments with contrast and ambivalent tonalities. This was the case for Symphony No.10, a symphony of emotion often perceived as an expression of the composer’s thoughts, which was not made public until after Stalin’s death.
William Kentridge, Oh To Believe in Another World (Installation View)
The film depicts intellectuals, politicians, avant-garde figures and the Shostakovich, moving through an imagined Soviet Museum that turns into a makeshift dreamworld, inhabited by historical film footage, ballerina puppets, Kentridge glyphs, lines from Mayakovsky’s poetry and plays, and slogans from the Russian Revolution. The audio component includes a montage of music by Russian composers, sampled and sliced to cacophonous effect to create a similar assemblage of sound. The fragmentation once denounced to Shostakovich by Stalin is celebrated here.
William Kentridge, Oh To Believe in Another World (Installation View)
The show also features a series of lithographs titled Portraits for Shostakovich, featuring a cast of Soviet protagonists from the projection. Their disjointed and collaged visages mirror the fractured society of Soviet Union and the constraints upon artistic expression which necessitated self-censorship.
The show closes October 21st.
– D. Creahan
Read more:
William Kentridge at Maian Goodman [Exhibition Site]
