Notes

An interest in optics and the construct of seeing informs William Kentridge’s experiments with stereoscopic vision, of which Table with Sparrow forms a part. Table with Sparrow translates the set of small photographic images inserted into a stereopticon, as seen in Kentridge’s earlier Double Vision (2007), into two largescale drawings forming a diptych and was subsequently made into an editioned work by the artist. 

A sense of contention and play is brought into the artist’s practice through the questioning of perception that Table with Sparrow proposes. It also harkens back to early experiments in binocular perception that found their way into the repertoire of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Provenance

Kindly donated by the artist and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London.

Exhibited

Norval Foundation, Cape Town, William Kentridge: Why Should I Hesitate, Sculpture, 24 August 2019 to 27 July 2020.

Literature

Karel Nel and Owen Martin (2019) William Kentridge: Why Should I Hesitate, Sculpture, Cape Town: Norval Foundation, illustrated on pages 196 and 197.