A major exhibition by acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge is presented at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, offering an expansive exploration of the artist’s sculptural practice. The Pull of Gravity marks the first museum exhibition outside South Africa to focus specifically on Kentridge’s sculpture and has developed over more than a decade of collaboration with the institution.
The exhibition brings together more than forty works produced between 2007 and 2024, creating a multi-layered journey through Kentridge’s visual language. Installed across the park’s indoor and outdoor spaces, the presentation includes a newly commissioned work titled Paper Procession. This series of six monumental painted sculptures appears to march across the landscape, positioned before a historic yew hedge within the sculpture park grounds. These works are accompanied by several of Kentridge’s largest bronze sculptures, set against the expansive views of the Yorkshire countryside.
Across the galleries, visitors encounter sculptures made from a wide range of materials including bronze, aluminium, steel, plaster, wood, paper and found objects. Together they demonstrate the artist’s distinctive approach to transformation and assemblage, where drawing and collage frequently evolve into three-dimensional forms.
Film also plays an important role in the exhibition. The presentation includes the first institutional showing of Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot (2020–2024), a sequence of short films begun during the Covid-19 lockdown that offers an intimate glimpse into the rhythms of Kentridge’s studio and the process of making. In another gallery, large-scale multi-screen installations feature works such as More Sweetly Play the Dance (2015) and Oh To Believe In Another World (2022). Projected across a sweeping installation of seven screens, the films combine music, movement and procession in immersive environments that surround viewers.
Kentridge is internationally recognised for a multidisciplinary practice that spans drawing, sculpture, animation, tapestry, theatre and opera. Born in Johannesburg in 1955, he has lived and worked in the city throughout his career. His work frequently reflects on the complex histories of South Africa, exploring themes of memory, colonial legacy and political narrative through poetic and often experimental forms.
The Pull of Gravity highlights the breadth of Kentridge’s sculptural thinking while situating it within the wider landscape of his practice, where personal reflection, historical inquiry and theatrical imagination intersect.
Exhibition information and images courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Image credits
William Kentridge, Sister Fan Sister Cone Sister Box, 2016. Courtesy of the artist; Goodman Gallery; Galleria Lia Rumma; and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Jonty Wilde. Courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
William Kentridge, The Pull of Gravity, 2025. Courtesy of the artist; Goodman Gallery; Galleria Lia Rumma; and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Jonty Wilde. Courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
William Kentridge, The Pull of Gravity, 2025. Courtesy of the artist; Goodman Gallery; Galleria Lia Rumma; and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Jonty Wilde. Courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
