Contemporary Art

Live Auction, 16 February 2019

Contemporary Auction
  • William Kentridge; Preparations in the Ante-Chamber


Lot Estimate
ZAR 1 500 000 - 2 000 000

About this Item

South African 1955-
Preparations in the Ante-Chamber
signed, dated '86 and inscribed with the title; inscribed with the artist’s name and title on an Everard Read Gallery label adhered to the reverse
charcoal with white gold paint and pastel on paper
100 by 70cm excluding frame

Notes

‘The show goes on in the background of this image, spot lit and enlarged for all to see. In the middleground shadowy figures move and talk with a sense of purpose. And in the foreground, behind the scenes of the theatre, stand two bound black figures, wounded and scored, testimony to the brutal truth of apartheid. The chilling reality of South Africa is encapsulated in this succinct image of illusions and layers of reality, reminiscent of a world sustained by fictions behind which evil plots are hatched and perpetrated.’1

  1. Julia Teale. (2001) ‘Works from a private collection of contemporary South African art on permanent loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town’. Unpaginated.

Provenance

Purchased from Die Kunskamer by the current owner in 1996.

Exhibited

This work was on loan to the Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, from 2001 – 2017, catalogue number 19.

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