Sharjah24: Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) is delighted to present A Shadow of a Shadow, a comprehensive survey of 17 performances by William Kentridge spanning from the late 1980s to the present. Kentridge’s first major solo exhibition in the Middle East showcases a wide range of his work, from his interpretations of King Ubu—the outrageous protagonist from Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi [King Ubu] (1896)—to Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute (1791) alongside Kentridge’s original production The Head and the Load (2018) about Africa and Africans during World War I. Visitors will encounter a variety of objects and artworks produced for the development and presentation of Kentridge’s performance projects, including drawings, stage backdrops, animations, puppets, props, costumes and installations inspired by theatrical illusions.
The exhibition title is inspired by a play by the thirteenth-century playwright and puppeteer Muhammad Ibn Daniyal, who fled Iraq during the Mongol invasions. Prompted by the sense that the world was ending, his shadow plays satirised authorities and exposed societal corruption, tropes that would appear again centuries later in Jarry’s Ubu Roi and Kentridge’s adaptation. While nodding to Kentridge’s predilection for shadow plays and puppet theatre, A Shadow of a Shadow also pays homage to his incisive political rebuke of authoritarianism through absurdist satire and theatricality. Together, the works selected for this exhibition speak to the artist’s ongoing critique of social constructs, power structures and the colonial project’s metamorphic manifestations.
A master draughtsman, illustrator, filmmaker and sculptor, Kentridge is also a prolific theatre-maker who has collaborated with local theatre groups and world-renowned opera houses for more than four decades. His practice encompasses theatrical, musical and operatic projects with visual components that appear and reappear in different articulations. Centring around the human condition, his multifaceted imagery is often interwoven with the social, political and economic realities of South Africa.
Running from 28 September to 8 December 2024, this exhibition is curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, and Tarek Abou El Fetouh, Senior Curator and Director of the Performance Department, with May Alqaydi, Assistant Curator, and Khalid Mohammed, Curatorial Assistant, Sharjah Art Foundation.
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