The Nose by William Kentridge
ABOUT THE PRINT
Created by Mr. Kentridge in collaboration with master printers at the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, the combination print is exemplary of his skillful and highly expressive use of the printmaking medium.
Conceived after Dmitri Shostakovich's 1903 opera of the same title, which Mr. Kentridge recently directed and designed for New York's Metropolitan Opera, the edition illustrates the politics and whimsicalities located within the opera and Nikolai Gogol's 1836 story on which the opera is based.
At the request of the artist, Benefit Print Project will sell 35 of the edition in support of the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. The remaining 35 will be sold by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in South Africa in 1955, William Kentridge has, over three decades, combined drawing and animation with film and performance to create a multidisciplinary practice that is simultaneously political and romantic.
Mr. Kentridge was the recent recipient of a large-scale exhibition organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Florida's Norton Museum of Art. The exhibition was on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, before traveling to museums in Paris, Vienna, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, and Vancouver. Included in the exhibition are works related to the artist's staging and design of The Nose.
ABOUT THE MARKET THEATER
The Market Theatre, founded in Johannesburg in 1976 by Mannie Manim and the late Barney Simon, was constructed out of Johannesburg's Indian Fruit Market - built in 1913. The theatre went on to become internationally renowned as South Africa's "Theatre of the Struggle."
The Market Theatre challenged the apartheid regime, armed with little more than the conviction that culture can change society. The strength and truth of that conviction was acknowledged in 1995 when the theatre received the American Jujamcyn Award.
During the past three decades, The Market Theatre has evolved into a cultural complex for theatre, music, dance and the allied arts. Today, The Market Theatre remains at the forefront of South African theatre, actively encouraging new works that continue to reach international stages.