William Kentridge

THIRD FLOOR PROJECT SPACE

Marian Goodman Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new Drawings for Lulu by William Kentridge and a suite of linocut prints specially created for THE LULU PLAYS, a limited edition artist book published by Arion Press in 2015 which will be on view in our Third Floor Project Space.

The drawings are shown on the occasion of the publication and on the occasion of the presentation of Alban Berg’s opera, Lulu, with direction and staging by William Kentridge, premiering at The Metropolitan Opera, New York on Thursday, November 5th. Kentridge’s production of Lulu, sung in German, is conducted by James Levine. There will be eight performances, through December 3rd. This is a co-production with the Dutch National Opera and the English National Opera.

Presenting the original 67 drawings by William Kentridge used in Lulu’s creation, as well as a suite of four linocut prints signed by the artist, the gallery exhibition showcases the original material for the limited edition book and the opera, the latter which was inspired by silent films of the 1920s and 30s, the time in which Lulu was composed.

As William notes, “the drawings, made with brush and ink on dictionary pages between 2011 and 2015, were created for use in the production of the opera. The physicality of ink – black ink, ink as blood, the harsh lines and clarity of images corresponding to the ruthless world, becomes an aesthetic equivalent of the instability of desire, a central construct in the Lulu opera. Lulu is both less and more than she wants to be, and more and less than her suitors imagine her to be. As such, she is often represented in a fractured formation in the drawings; constructed on multiple sheets; created to deconstruct and to fall apart. As femme fatale, she exists in many forms and there are myriad women representing her. The images used in the opera production span the period of the plays at the turn of the twentieth century to the opera in the early 1930s. Amongst the images are translations from Beckmann, Kirchner, Klimt, Nolde, Kollwitz, as well as images from documentary and the fictional films of the period.”

Featured in the book The Lulu Plays are original plays by Frank Wedekind –Earth-Spirit and Pandora’s Box-- on which the opera’s libretto was based, giving us a rare chance to become acquainted with the literary origins of the opera. These two plays from the turn of the last century changed the course of drama, not just in Germany but worldwide, and have had a profound effect on film and opera as well.