Notes

The Ubu Tells the Truth etchings were the starting point for a theatre production Ubu & the Truth Commission (1997). The Sleeper prints were made after the theatre production was completed. I had worked on a series of messy drawings of a naked man, sometimes enclosed by the white Ubu line drawing, trying to get some of the feel of the theatre production in them. With the first set of drypoints I had used a thumbprint and printed the heel of my hand to suggest the flesh texture. With the large drawings one has to pull the shape and texture into the drawing on a larger scale. I wheeled a bicycle over the paper, hit it with a charcoalimpregnated silk rope, invited children and cats to walk over it, spattered it freely with pigment. The Sleeper series used a range of materials and objects placed in soft ground to try to effect the same damage upon the paper.
- William Kentridge

Provenance

Goodman Gallery.

Literature

Bronwyn Law-Viljoen (ed.) (2006). William Kentridge Prints, Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing. Another example from the edition is illustrated in colour on pages 68 and 69.