6/5/2008
Multiple Choice
Nomad, Bruxelles
William Kentridge, Kay Hassan, Norman Catherine
On Wednesday 7 May, MoBa Gallery in Brussels opened a new gallery space entitled NOMAD, which is dedicated to contemporary African art. In Multiple Choice, three very important South African artists: William Kentridge, Norman Catherine and Kay Hassan, express themselves through editions. This will be William Kentridge’s first real gallery show in Brussels, precisely 10 years after his solo show in Bozar, the Centre for Fine Arts (1998). We are showing almost 60 major works of Kentridge alone.
The exhibition will run until 22 June, Thursday- Sunday from 2pm until 6pm. We decided to put these three in dialogue with one another due to their strengths and the language they speak together in their work.
William Kentridge is perhaps one of the best-known artists of his generation. Since 1989, Kentridge has been creating handmade animation films focusing on the apartheid and post-apartheid era. Kentridge has managed, with a few strokes of charcoal drawings and minimum pastel colour to redefine images. With these drawings and films he creates scenography for major theatrical productions, including the Magic Flute, which began in La Monnaie Opera, Brussels, in 2005 and has travelled worldwide. Kentridge is preparing for his new project at the Metropolitan Opera in New York next year, based on a Shostakovich opera with The Nose, a satirical short story by Russian/Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol. The opera comes from an unpromising era just after the Russian Revolution as Stalin ascended to power. His interpretation shows a galloping horse of cut paper and an eponymous nose.
A solo show in the Museum of Modern Art in New York is predicted for 2010.
On living a lifetime in Johannesburg: "I have never been able to escape Johannesburg, and in the end, all my work is rooted in this rather desperate provincial city. I have never tried to make illustrations of apartheid, but the drawings and the films are certainly spawned by, and feed off, the brutalised society left in its wake."
On his drawings: "The drawings don't start with 'a beautiful mark'. It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn't have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not something that is abstract, like an emotion."
As for Kay Hassan and Norman Catherine, also legends in their home country of South Africa, they both are present in many permanent and private collections, such as the Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian, Daimler Chrysler, and David Bowie's collection to name a few.
MoBa has been exhibiting tribal and contemporary African art since 1991 and will continue as a private gallery focused on contemporary photography. MoBa has traveled with these portraits to France, the Netherlands, and Mali last year for the Photo Biennale as well as during the Dak’art Biennale in Dakar, Senegal in 2006. In addition to the work in the gallery, MoBa Gallery has participated in Art Fairs and exhibits internationally.
Next opening: 25 June, NOMAD will show Jürgen Schadeberg and Pierre Crocquet (South Africa) in Now and Then during the Summer of Photography until the end of August. Please contact us for more information.
Image: William Kentridge, Untitled (Artist Sitting) 1998, Drypoint and soft ground, Paper size 45cm x 50cm
For more information:
Ashley Peeler ashley@moba.be
Walter De Weerdt walter@moba.be
M O B A g o e s N O M A D
Contemporary African Art & Photography
Nomad
96 Blvd. Emile Jacqmain, 1000 Brussels
Thursday-Sunday 14:00-18:00 and by appointment