The Scene of Thought. William Kentridge at Villa Rufolo

In Sibyl (2020), which grew out of the theatre project Waiting for the Sibyl, language loses any pretence of stability. The figure of the Sibyl represents not only destiny, but the impossibility of a definitive word. Words appear and dissolve to a musical rhythm, suggesting that meaning can never be definitively fixed. In Fugitive Words (2024), this reflection becomes more radical: language becomes visual matter, a fluid lexicon composed of notes, fragments and insights that run through the work like an open score. Finally, with Mayakovsky Diorama (2025), Kentridge returns to exploring the relationship between the artistic avant-garde and political utopia, using shadow theatre and the diorama to reflect on the legacy of the great revolutionary narratives of the twentieth century, in a visual evocation that draws inspiration, amongst other things, from the imagery of Georges Méliès.

Even Medicine Chest (2001), which appears more intimate, forms part of this same exploration. The projection onto the transparent door of a medicine cabinet transforms an everyday object into a mental scene in which identity, memory and perception multiply without ever finding a definitive balance. Here too, representation is replaced by a process of continuous transformation.

The sculptures from Paper Procession (2023), scattered throughout the gardens and terraces of Villa Rufolo, further expand this theatrical dimension. The silhouettes seem to emerge directly from the drawn sheets to inhabit the landscape, transforming the Mediterranean into a vast natural stage where light, wind and the visitor’s movements become an integral part of the work. The scene extends beyond the architecture, drawing the landscape itself into the composition.

This conception of theatre places Kentridge at the heart of contemporary thinking on the stage. His work, in fact, engages with what Hans-Thies Lehmann has termed ‘post-dramatic theatre’: a theatrical form in which it is no longer the narrative that structures the performance, but the dynamic relationship between images, sounds, bodies and different temporal dimensions. The audience is not expected to follow a linear plot, but rather to navigate a perceptual field in which every element contributes to the construction of meaning.

It is precisely in this experience of the gaze that a resonance with the thought of Jacques Rancière also emerges. Art, argues the French philosopher, is political not when it conveys an ideological message, but when it alters the ‘partition of the sensible’ – that is, the way in which we see, hear and organise our experience of the world. Kentridge’s works do not illustrate the history of apartheid, colonialism or political violence; rather, they transform the way in which such events can be perceived. Through montage, erasure, superimposition and rhythm, the artist constructs images that reveal the fractures in memory and the contradictions of history.

In this sense, the exhibition at Villa Rufolo goes beyond simply paying tribute to one of the leading figures in contemporary art. It captures the complexity of a body of work that has made theatre a category of thought even before it became a stage practice. Drawing, cinema, music, the spoken word and sculpture are not autonomous languages, but tools in a single inquiry into time, memory and the construction of images – not only those in motion.

Within the context of the Ravello Festival, a place where music has always been at the heart of the cultural experience, Kentridge’s work takes on a further layer of meaning. His works remind us that images, too, possess a rhythm, a duration and a musicality; that every drawing is a score and every scene is an exercise in memory. The theatre, then, is not a place of fiction, but one where thought becomes visible and history continues, stubbornly, to question the present.

William Kentridge, Villa Rufolo, until 5 September