Drawings for Lulu

William Kentridge is one of the most significant figures in contemporary art. His interdisciplinary oeuvre encompasses drawing, printmaking, hand-animated film, installations, sculptural objects, and works for theater and opera. The artist’s practice is profoundly influenced by his South African origins. Kentridge grew up in a white family that openly opposed apartheid, and a sensitivity to issues of power, guilt, memory, and social injustice has therefore become one of the defining features of his art. His work is rooted in the specific history of his homeland, yet he also translates these themes into broader reflections on human existence, politics, memory, and cultural history. Kentridge has continuously worked with drawing and printmaking since the mid-1970s, but he gained considerable attention above all for his hand-drawn animated films from the late 1980s and early 1990s. In recent decades he has focused primarily on multi-channel videos, which he often embeds in complex scenographic installations. Kentridge’s works are held in prominent collections around the world and have repeatedly been featured in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale and documenta in Kassel. The work Drawing for Lulu is an ink drawing on found printed paper. It was created in connection with the artist’s staging of the opera Lulu by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. For this production, Kentridge created an extensive set of drawings that were projected onto the backdrop during the performance, thus becoming an active part of the dramatic space. In his work with ink, the artist found an expressive equivalent to the charged poignancy of Berg’s opera: Here a black mark is not merely a graphic record – it evokes the work’s physicality, violence, and dark psychology. The drawing was featured in Kentridge’s solo exhibition The Battle Between YES and NO at Kunsthalle Praha.

50 % of the hammer price is allocated to support the non-profit foundation Spolu s odvahou, a member of the Bátor Tábor family. 50 % is allocated to support the Centre for the Less Good Idea in South Africa.