Smoke, Ashes, Fable

The well-known South African artist William Kentridge (b. 1955) has become famous for his time-lapse animation movies and installations, as well as his activities as an opera and theater director. This book offers a unique selection of Kentridge’s work curated for Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges-at 800 years one of Europe’s oldest surviving hospital buildings – organized around the themes of trauma and healing. The book features an introduction by Margaret K. Koerner, and also includes essays by diverse distinguished contributors: Benjamin Buchloh considers Kentridge’s alternate reception of the historical avant-garde from a perspective of exile; Joseph Leo Koerner explores the artist’s work as a self-styled process of working in which the past simultaneously disfigures and redeems; and Harmon Siegel examines Kentridge’s approach to film history.