In conjunction with its current exhibition, William Kentridge: Universal Archive, the Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University will host a screening of the Metropolitan Opera’s The Nose by Dimitri Shostakovich at the Hamilton Theater, 7 Lebanon Street, Hamilton, NY, on Thursday, March 31, 2016, at 5:30 p.m. Renowned South African artist William Kentridge directed the satirical opera, which tells the story of a hapless Russian bureaucrat who wakes one morning to discover that his nose has run away.
The Nose originally premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 2010 and stars Tony Award–winner Paulo Szot, Andrey Popov, and Alexander Lewis, with Pavel Smelkov as conductor. Kentridge made his Met debut as stage director with this production, incorporating video projection and animated drawings into the set design. Prior to The Nose, Kentridge created acclaimed multimedia productions of Büchner’s Woyzeck, Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. His recent production of Alban Berg’s Lulu opened at the Met in November 2015.
The Nose is a coproduction of the Metropolitan Opera; the Festival d’Aix en Provence; and the Opéra National de Lyon.
The screening is free and open to the public. Total run time: 1 hour and 50 minutes.
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday, March 31, 2016: Screening of William Kentridge’s production of The Nose by Dimitri Shostakovich, 5:30 p.m., Hamilton Theater, 7 Lebanon St., Hamilton. Opening remarks by Anja Chávez, director of university museums and Sarah Horowitz, curatorial assistant, Picker Art Gallery and Longyear Museum of Anthropology.
RELATED EXHIBITION
William Kentridge: Universal Archive
January 21–May 15, 2016
Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Dana Arts Center, Hamilton, NY
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday,
William Kentridge: Universal Archive is organized for tour by the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College and is made possible, in part, by contributions from Alva Greenberg ʼ74, the Gund Gallery Board of Directors, and the Ohio Arts Council.
Additional support comes from Colgate University’s Robert J. Gerberg ’59, P’85 Endowment for the Visual Arts. The exhibition is free and open to the public.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1955. He attended the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1973–76) and the Johannesburg Art Foundation (1976–78) and studied mime and theater at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris (1981–82). Having witnessed firsthand one of the twentieth century’s most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects. Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. In a now-signature technique, Kentridge photographs his charcoal drawings and paper collages over time, recording scenes as they evolve. Working without a script or storyboard, he uses these images to create animated films, preserving every addition and erasure. Aware of the myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge uses stereoscopic viewers and creates optical illusions with anamorphic projection to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions.
Kentridge has had major exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008), Moderna Museet, Stockholm, (2007), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2004), among other venues. He has also participated in Prospect.1 New Orleans (2008), the Sydney Biennale (1996 and 2008), and Documenta (1997 and 2002). His opera and theater works, often produced in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company, have appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (2007); the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa (1992, 1996, and 1998); and Festival d’Avignon, France (1995 and 1996). His production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera The Nose premiered in 2010 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in conjunction with a retrospective organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Kentridge lives and works in Johannesburg.
HAMILTON THEATER
Since 1895, Hamilton Theater has served as a centerpiece for films, live performances, and community events. One of the few remaining independent theaters, Hamilton Theater provides diverse film programming for the community, preserving and enhancing its historic tradition as a community resource. Hamilton Theater is a member of the League of Historic American Theaters.
PICKER ART GALLERY AT COLGATE UNIVERSITY
The Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University is a teaching and collecting museum that engages local and global communities through innovative exhibitions, interdisciplinary research, dynamic outreach, and meaningful experiences with art across cultures, time, and media. The Gallery’s permanent collection includes nearly 11,000 objects, among them, approximately 8,000 works of art on paper, 1,400 photographs, 900 paintings, and 300 sculptures, primarily from the twentieth century. It is located on the Colgate University campus, off Lally Lane, on the second floor of the Paul Rudolph–designed Dana Arts Center.
The Picker Art Gallery is open Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday,