This summer we are thrilled to be presenting a major exhibition by South African artist William Kentridge. It marks the first museum presentation outside South Africa to focus on his sculpture.

Comprising over 40 works made between 2007 and 2024, this ambitious project will fill the Underground Gallery, with outdoor works presented in the surrounding gardens.

Over the last two decades, sculpture has increasingly become a key part of Kentridge’s practice, taking drawing into three dimensions and developing from puppetry, film and stage props. This exciting new exhibition includes a selection of the artist’s sculpture from this period across different scales and media, including bronze, steel, paper, cardboard, plaster, wood and found objects.

Several works will be displayed for the first time, including a new commission of six monumental coloured sculptures, Paper Procession, on parade in YSP’s historic landscape.

Here you will also experience the first institutional presentation of Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot (2020-24), a series of films whose production began during the first Covid-19 lockdown, as well as the UK museum debut of the 7-channel film, More Sweetly Play the Dance (2015).

In the landscape, several large-scale bronzes will be shown against the backdrop of a curving early 19th-century brick wall of the Bothy Garden. Each over three metres in height, these sculptures include a striding figure with megaphone head, an ampersand, and a cat.

William Kentridge is known for his work across a range of media, including drawing, animated films, theatre and opera productions. His practice questions grand narratives from history, politics, science, literature and music, alongside an ongoing interrogation of the legacy of colonialism. His work references avant-garde movements such as Dada and Surrealism in his celebration of the illogical and darkly humorous. Kentridge has lived in Johannesburg throughout his life and his work is inextricably connected to the sociopolitical history and life of South Africa.

The exhibition is generously supported by the Sakana Foundation in addition to Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, and Lia Rumma Gallery. Supported by the William Kentridge Exhibition Circle. Additional support from Stonehage Fleming.