Saturday, April 17

I never miss a William Kentridge lecture if I can help it. William really has a way of explaining his working processes in such a way that one can continue to learn from him. At the Gipca lecture at Michaelis last week, he talked about his approach to turning Gogol’s story ‘The Nose’ into a new version of Shoshkatovich’s opera.
William Kentridge at Michaelis

This approach is a process of sedimentation – taking in ideas through reading, seeing, listening, reacting. And layering these ideas. In Gogol’s story “The Nose’, about a nose which leaves its owner to live a life of its own, there is no horse. But William liked the idea of putting the nose on horseback. So of course, the nose on horseback became a part of the opera. One has to work to justify the image through the concept, say Kentridge.
The Nose on horseback

Kentridge’s opera opened at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in March, the same month that his retrospective opened at MoMA. Surely a first for any artist. Over drinks after the lecture, William told me the MoMA show was pulling in a record 6000 visitors a day. Incredible.
Donna Kukama performs

This week’s highlight was the opening of the new National Gallery exhibition. Incoming director Riason Naidoo closed the gallery for six weeks to rehang the permanent collection in a show called From Pierneef to Gugulective. Big crowd. Lots of work on the walls. Looking good on first walkthrough. Samoosas and music in a marquee outside. And Donna Kukama giving a really engaging performance as a speechless museum spokesperson – pushing round a trolley of noisemaking machines, attracting the attention of visitors by blowing a whistle, lots of body language signals, writing her interpretations of works on a little board.