William Kentridge: Triumphs & Laments at the Emerson Media Arts Gallery

This exhibit is open from Wednesday - Friday from 2:00PM - 7:00PM

Emerson Urban Arts: Media Art Gallery presents a selection from the internationally acclaimed, South Africa-based artist William Kentridge’s most recent body of work, Triumphs and Laments. Triumphs and Laments, originally produced as a 550-meter long frieze along the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, will include the complete set of aquatint etchings and woodcuts relating to the frieze, two long maquettes that diagram its figural processional, a set of monumental stencils, and a video highlighting the opening performance in Rome. 

The premise of the original public art project in Rome was to produce a procession of Italian history and its various “triumphs and laments.” Created by “reverse graffiti” from the dirt on the embankment wall, the figures will eventually merge with new layers of pollution. Rather than considering Rome’s history to be eternal, Kentridge has aimed “to capture the transient: to bear witness to what is altered and dissolved over time.”

“In this work, Kentridge presents figures from a broad sweep of Italian history to in a grand procession to represent the progress and follies of human endeavors. In this work, the artist has brought this theme to contemporary relevance with his images of the migrant boat people,” said Ketner, Emerson’s Henry and Lois Foster Chair in Contemporary Art and director of Emerson Urban Arts, Media Art Gallery, part of Emerson’s School of the Arts and Visual and Media Arts (VMA) Department

This exhibit is on display from February 15 through April 14, 2018. For more information please click Here!