Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) presents The Pull of Gravity, a new landmark exhibition by the celebrated South African artist, William Kentridge. The Pull of Gravity marks the first museum presentation outside South Africa to focus on Kentridge’s sculpture and has been a decade in the making.
Bringing together over 40 works made between 2007 and 2024, this significant project is a carefully choreographed multi-sensory journey into Kentridge’s world. Paper Procession, created for YSP, is a commission of six monumental, colourful sculptures that parade in front of a century-old yew hedge. Joining this new work are four of the artist’s largest bronzes to date, displayed against far-reaching views over the Yorkshire landscape.
The Pull of Gravity presents an extensive body of sculpture across a range of scales and materials, including bronze, steel, aluminium, paper, cardboard, plaster, wood and found objects. In addition, the exhibition features the first institutional presentation of Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot (2020-24). This series of short films was embarked upon during the first Covid-19 lockdown and allows audiences an intimate insight into the life of Kentridge’s studio, the workings of his mind as well as the energy and agency of making. In the central gallery space, two films – More Sweetly Play the Dance (2015) and Oh To Believe In Another World (2022) – are shown in rotation in an immersive installation across seven screens. They span over 20 metres and wrap around the viewers, surrounding them with music and movement.
Kentridge is known for working across media, including drawing, sculpture, tapestry, animated films, theatre and opera productions. He has lived in Johannesburg throughout his life and his practice is indelibly connected to the socio-political history of South Africa. From a standpoint that rejects certainty, he questions grand narratives from history, politics, science, literature and music, alongside an ongoing interrogation of the legacy of colonialism. Clare Lilley, Director at YSP had this to say, “Yorkshire Sculpture Park has had a long-held ambition to work with William Kentridge and for more than a decade we have had conversations about sculpture. It is with a profound sense of joy to now present a substantial and representative body of Kentridge’s work.”
Although tackling pressing and difficult subjects, Kentridge does so with openness and curiosity around the human condition. The artist makes works that are acerbic and challenging, yet they embrace the enduring possibility of hope and abound with poeticism and beauty. These ideas are often explored using metaphors of darkness and light, lightness and weight – all considerations that are vital to his sculpture.
Over the last two decades, sculpture has increasingly become a key part of Kentridge’s practice, taking drawing into three dimensions and developing from puppetry, film and stage props. The inextricable relationship between drawing and sculpture in his work is at the heart of The Pull of Gravity. His sculptures delve into how the essence of form is constructed, perceived and understood, testing the boundaries of the medium and its potential to embody ideas and question ways of seeing.
Kentridge’s engagement with the history of sculpture-making can be seen in works that reference wide-ranging sources of inspiration, from Picasso’s bronze The She Goat (1950) to the ancient figure of Laocoön (27 BC–68 AD). Kentridge’s own Laocoön (Plaster) (2021) has interlaced and arcing forms that echo the energy and movement of its ancient namesake. Bringing the relationship between three-dimensional and two-dimensional forms into focus are large drawings on the gallery walls that mirror the shapes of the sculpture and which explore the connected concepts of positive and negative, darkness and light, shadows and silhouettes.
In addition to sculpture, a selection of films, tapestry, and drawings are brought together in an exhibition designed by one of Kentridge’s long-term collaborators, Sabine Theunissen. In the large central gallery, two films create a truly absorbing experience, shown on seven large screens that fill the space. The iconic More Sweetly Play the Dance (2015) is a caravan of figures in silhouette, including a brass band, animated skeletons, and figures that references the migration of refugees, the West African Ebola outbreak and so on, accompanied by haunting music.
Visitors are able to engage with a programme of activities at YSP, drawing on themes in Kentridge’s work. A catalogue featuring a newly commissioned essay by Tamar Garb and in-situ photography is published to coincide with the exhibition and is for sale online and in the YSP shop. The exhibition is made possible through the generosity of the Sakana Foundation, Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth and Lia Rumma Gallery. It is supported by the kind philanthropy of the William Kentridge Exhibition Circle. Logistics partner is Crozier Fine Arts while additional support is sourced from Stonehage Fleming. The exhibition will run until the 19th of April 2026 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, United Kingdom.
