The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) announced the joint acquisition of South African artist William Kentridge’s major multimedia installation The Refusal of Time (2012). The acquisition is on display at the Metropolitan Museum through May 11, 2014.
Among Kentridge’s most complex and ambitious work to date, the piece represents a key development in the artist’s recent practice, with the incorporation of major sculptural and kinetic elements in an immersive multi-projection environment.
William Kentridge’s installations of recent years are particularly notable for their skillful integration of moving image, sound, sculptural elements, and theater to provide the viewer with an experience virtually unparalleled in other recent time-based practice. His work in all media—drawings, video projections, prints, performance—deftly combines visually seductive imagery with probing explorations of the interwoven histories of science, colonialism, and globalization, as well as the ephemeral nature of both personal and cultural memory.
Commissioned originally for Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, The Refusal of Time (2012) comprises five separate video channels that are projected around the room and a layered soundscape by the renowned South African composer Philip Miller, which emits from various megaphones, each with a different soundtrack. Central to the work is a large kinetic sculpture—the “breathing machine” or “elephant”—an organ-like automaton with a pumping bellows. For the video projections, Kentridge collaborated with choreographers, filmmakers, and stage designers to create animations and live-action sequences, including the final “shadow procession” that ends the 30-minute work.
More information: www.metmuseum.org