William Kentridge & Philip Miller 'BREATHE DISSOLVE RETURN'
William Kentridge, among the most influential and visionary artists of our time, once again interrogates history with a new immersive project of images and sounds, featuring original music by Philip Miller.
A multifaceted artist who moves fluidly between drawing, theatre, animation, and opera, Kentridge has always constructed his work as a vast visual and musical collage. Central to this journey is his collaboration with composer Philip Miller, which began in the 1990s and has become one of the most original artistic partnerships on the contemporary scene.
Just as Triumphs and Laments—the monumental ephemeral frieze created along the Tiber River in 2016—and the powerful processional work The Head and the Load—dedicated in 2018 to the history of Africa and Africans in the First World War—seem on the verge of fading into memory, Kentridge and Miller orchestrate their return to MAXXI in the innovative form of a cine-concert.
The two works are transformed into a new, original visual and musical experience that invites the viewer to consider history not as a linear narrative, but as a collage of memories, contradictions, and acts of resistance. A vast ribbon of moving images and an enveloping soundscape immerse the audience in the fragmented memory of history.
A project curated by Oscar Pizzo and Franco Laera
Co-produced by MAXXI and Change Performing Arts
In collaboration with William Kentridge Studio.
Triumphs and Laments was presented in Rome in 2016 as a site-specific work at the initiative of Tevereterno, directed by Kristin Jones, with executive production by THE OFFICE performing arts + film, supported by Galleria Lia Rumma and Marian Goodman Gallery.
KABOOM! is drawn from The Head and the Load, originally produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film on commission from 14–18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Commissions, MASS MoCA, Park Avenue Armory, Ruhrtriennale, and Yale Schwarzman Center, with support from the Holland Festival, and first presented on July 11, 2018, in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London. Original music by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi.
Header image: William Kentridge, Drawing for Triumphs and Laments (Bersagliere; La Dolce Vita), 2014. Courtesy of William Kentridge Studio and Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan / Naples.
