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KABOOM!
KABOOM!

KABOOM!

Artist William Kentridge South African, born 1955
Date2018
MediumThree channel HD film installation: model stage, paper props, found objects, and three mini-projectors with stands
Dimensions(Stage): 40 3/4 × 196 1/4 × 40 3/8 in. (103.5 × 498.5 × 102.6 cm)
(Installed Stage): 75 1/4 × 196 1/4 × 40 3/8 in. (191.1 × 498.5 × 102.6 cm)
(Projector): 76 × 13 3/4 × 13 3/4 in. (193 × 34.9 × 34.9 cm)
ClassificationsTime Based Media
Credit LinePurchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest)
Object number2020.8/a-mm
On View
Not on view
Label TextInvoking war and history itself as subjects, KABOOM! explores the story of the nearly two million African porters and carriers used by the British, French, and Germans during the First World War. The hand-drawn, animated film takes the form of a processional musical journey. With an immersive soundscape and a sculptural stage set, it creates an experience of a live performance.

Kentridge presents a pageant of “what we’ve chosen not to remember”: porters bearing not only the physical load that was carried all across Africa but also the historical legacy and paradoxes of colonialism, magnified by the war.
[L. Dougherty, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCreated South Africa, 2018; collection of the artist; [Goodman Gallery, Cape Town and Johannesburg]; sold to NCMA, 2020.
Published ReferencesNorth Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection," (Raleigh, NC; North Carolina Museum of Art, 2024), illus. (color) 102.Exhibition HistoryJohannesburg, South Africa, Goodman Gallery, “William Kentridge: KABOOM!,” October 13–November 10, 2018.

New York, NY, Marian Goodman Gallery, “William Kentridge: Let Us Try For Once,” March 1–April 20, 2019.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022-September 5, 2023. Object Rights Statement

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