Invitation to the press conference ‘William Kentridge. Listen to the Echo’

To mark the 70th birthday of William Kentridge, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections, SKD) are dedicating a major exhibition festival to the South African artist under the title William Kentridge. Listen to the Echo. It is being organised by three museums of the SKD in cooperation with the Museum Folkwang in Essen. As well as the world-famous artist Kentridge himself, the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, which was founded by him and Bronwyn Lace, is also acting as a curatorial and artistic partner for the festival in Dresden. For the first time, William Kentridge’s visual art and the Centre’s radically creative practices can be experienced simultaneously in an international exhibition.

Based on his experiences under South Africa’s apartheid regime, Kentridge’s works deal with the wounds of racism, exploitation, and injustice in societies humiliated by repressive regimes, as well as with major issues such as guilt and forgiveness, community, and humanity. This means that his works are not to be interpreted solely in a local context. They resonate worldwide with personal or collective concerns. Dresden and Essen have joined forces to address social and political issues in two historically very different places and to bring Kentridge’s art to life in these specific settings.

Processions, parades, and demonstrations have always played a special role in Dresden: we can look to the festive pageants of August the Strong, campaigns for civil rights in the nineteenth century, state-organised parades during the GDR era, the Peaceful Revolution around 1989, and the more recent Pegida protest marches.

Dresden’s monumental Fürstenzug (Procession of the Princes), the designs for which are on display in this exhibition, is an ancestral gallery of the rulers of Saxony and hence a symbol of power. It exemplifies the contradictory echoes of the past regarding rule and resistance, self-empowerment and oppression, pride and fear, triumphs and laments. Wilhelm Walther’s full-scale preliminary drawings for this famous work, created between 1869 and 1876, belong to the collection of the Kupferstich-Kabinett. Restored with the support of the Rudolf-August Oetker Foundation in preparation for the exhibitions, they constitute their conceptual focal point.

In the Albertinum, they are juxtaposed with William Kentridge’s monumental film installations ‘More Sweetly Play the Dance’ (2015) and ‘Oh To Believe in Another World’ (2022). Here, Kentridge’s figures, including dancers and stumbling figures, soldiers and defeated people, encounter members of the Saxon ruling dynasty, the House of Wettin. The dialogue makes it clear that the triumph of one is the lament of the other, and vice versa. The subsequent part of the exhibition shows further works – drawings, tapestries, sculptures, photographs, collages – on the theme of procession, which provide an insight into the conception and realisation of the two films and give an important impression of Kentridge’s artistic practice in all its diversity.

The theme of processions is also central to the exhibition in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in the Residenzschloss (Royal Palace). Here, Kentridge’s rich printmaking oeuvre is presented, covering 45 years of creative activity. It clearly illustrates Kentridge’s interest in image-finding processes that transcend genres and media and are interdisciplinary, open, experimental, and, above all, collaborative. At the same time, Kentridge is as independent in his visual worlds as he is knowledgeable about art history. The juxtaposition of his works with prints from the Kupferstich-Kabinett, for example by Hans Burgkmair, Jacques Callot, Albrecht Dürer, Francisco de Goya, or early colour woodcuts based on Andrea Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar series, demonstrates both aesthetic connections across the centuries and the significance of the procession as a traditional theme in art history. A special guest is the bronze statuette of Marcus Aurelius by the Florentine sculptor Filarete from the holdings of the Skulpturensammlung (Sculpture Collection) of the SKD.

In the Studiolo, also located in the Residenzschloss, a presentation of two films from the ongoing series ‘Drawings for Projection’ – namely, ‘Monument’ (1990) and ‘Weighing... and Wanting’ (1998) – provides insight into William Kentridge’s important long-term project, which uses drawing to present a kind of chronicle of recent South African history. Parallel to the animated charcoal drawings in the film, large-format, virtuoso drawings have been created that complement this group of works.

Artists from the Centre for the Less Good Idea are curating the 2025/2026 annual exhibition in the Puppentheatersammlung at Kraftwerk Mitte. Distinguished by vibrant creativity, this part of the festival is also based on the principle of collaborative practice. At the same time, it creates an echo between different artistic worlds: the universe of William Kentridge, the Centre’s artistic practice, and the (historical) art of puppet theatre, whose artifacts are preserved in the Puppentheatersammlung.

The Centre’s team has been working with the Puppentheatersammlung, focusing on puppetry, shadow and silhouette theatre, and the animation of objects in the green screen studio. For this purpose, five display cases have been developed based on the ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ technique. This ancient theatre illusion technique uses a semi-transparent glass pane to make ‘ghosts’ appear on stage. The miniature form is a newly developed form of artistic expression. In addition to new sound and video installations and historical objects, the exhibition features works by Kentridge as a puppet theatre director and creator of animated objects.

To mark the opening of the festival, a newly commissioned, large-scale performance event will also be premiered: the ‘Foot Power’ procession through Dresden’s city centre, which will take place from 7:30 to 9 p.m. on 5 September. It is a work of the Centre for the Less Good Idea in collaboration with William Kentridge, and has been made possible thanks to the support of MUSEIS SAXONICIS USUI – Freunde der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden e.V. It has been planned in collaboration with the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK), the Banda Comunale, and the choir Singasylum – Chor für Alle. The procession is a public event.

On 6 September, at noon, Kentridge will deliver his lecture-performance ‘A Defense of the Less Good Idea’ in the Historischen Schwaltwarte (historic control room) at Kraftwerk Mitte. Afterwards, between 3 and 4 p.m., there will be an opportunity to have Kentridge personally sign the catalogue in the study room of the Kupferstich-Kabinett in the Residenzschloss.

On 13 and 14 February 2026, the Dresden Philharmonic, conducted by Michael Sanderling, will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 together with William Kentridge’s work ‘Oh To Believe In Another World.’ In this film, which he created to accompany this symphony, and which will also be shown as a video installation at the Albertinum, Kentridge addresses the composer’s ambivalent relationship with the Soviet state.

The catalogue ‘William Kentridge. Listen to the Echo’ is being published by Steidl Verlag. It is edited by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the Museum Folkwang in Essen, 272 pages, ISBN 978-3-96999-476-4, Bookshop price: € 38.00.