William Kentridge

Cindy Bordeau Fine Art, Chicago 

Private Collection, California, USA, acquired from the above in 1998

Acquired from the above by the present owner 

New York, MoMA, Open Ends: Minimalism and After, 5 November 2000 - 30 January 2001 (another edition)

Washington, D.C., National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Recent Acquisitions and Promised Gifts, 18 October 2002 - 5 January 2003 (another edition)

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Insights, National Museum of African Art, 27 February - 28 November 2004 (another edition)

New York, MoMA, Re-picturing the Past/Picturing the Present, 13 June 2007 - 5 November 2007 (another edition)

New York, MoMA, William Kentridge: Five Themes, 24 February 2010 - 17 May 2010 (another edition)

Liverpool, The Bluecoat, A Universal Archive: William Kentridge as Printmaker, 7 December 2012 - 3 February 2013 then touring to mac, Birmingham; QUAD, Derby; University of Northumbria Gallery, Newcastle; Peninsula Arts, Plymouth; Arts Centre, Aberystwyth (another edition)

This highly skilled set of eight etchings represents one element of an unprecedented production of interconnected works in the late 1990s based on Alfred Jarry's infamous despot character, Ubu Roi. Invited to participate in an exhibition entitled, "Ubu+ 100," Kentridge produced a whole series of narratives about the character, fitting the iconic villain into a South African context, in etchings, animated films, a series of larger drawings, a theater production by the Handspring Puppet Company, and a multimedia installation work.

Jarry's farce of 1896, designed for marionettes, caused an uproar in Paris and helped shape the progress of avant-garde theater in the 20th century. As a notorious buffooned, lampooned character, Ubu Roi has provided a versatile figure for artists throughout the century to apply to local histories and personalities. Kentridge splits the Ubu character in two (a similar format to his ongoing narrative feud between Felix and Soho in his other works), suggesting with the different forms a rift between the public and private self.

The artist portrays the ruler as a split personality, the larger buffooned cartoon figure, outlined here in chalk white of the greedy, glutinous king, and a naked male drawn in an illusionistic manner and modeled on the artist's own form, perhaps representing the alter-ego private self. The dual figures are shown acting out a number of scenes from a play narrative (although not in any particular order), the chalk outline always gregarious and public in nature, the human form often trying to cleanse or distance himself from his other half. Action within the scenes is set against a black wall and upon a roughly hewn wooden stage.

Others from this edition are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian National Museum for African Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Art Institute Chicago, and the University of Michigan.