Boston Globe | By Cate McQuaid
Public monuments traditionally celebrate leaders and remember the fallen, simplifying history into tales of victory and bravery. “William Kentridge: Triumphs and Laments,” at Emerson Urban Arts Media Art Gallery, begins with the premise that history is written by the victor and attempts a more nuanced rewrite.
Kentridge, the great South African artist, has witnessed history in apartheid’s ravages and his country’s attempts to rectify them. In 2016, he visited Rome, and undertook to wrest that city’s history from its monuments. His 550-meter-long frieze along an embankment of the Tiber River is reverse graffiti: He masked off 51 groups of figures, and erased the dust and grime around them. They’re still there, written in dirt….read more
William Kentridge’s “Triumphs and Laments Frieze II”