On view at Villa Rufolo in Ravello, Italy, through September 5th, 2026, as part of the 74th Ravello Festival, this major William Kentridge exhibition, organised by the Ravello Foundation with Galleria Lia Rumma, celebrates one of contemporary art’s most inventive voices. Bringing together drawings, sculptures, tapestries, films, and installations, it reveals how image, music, theatre, and cinema converge within Kentridge’s singular artistic vision.
Where drawing meets theatre
Across Villa Rufolo’s historic rooms and gardens, Kentridge’s works dissolve the boundaries between visual art and performance. Drawings pulse with rhythm, films echo theatrical gestures, and installations weave together memory, politics, and storytelling. The villa’s enduring connection to Richard Wagner adds another layer to an artist whose practice has long bridged opera, stage design, and moving image.
Among the highlights is Preparing the Flute (2005), inspired by Kentridge’s acclaimed production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Projected onto a miniature theatre, the video installation transforms the stage into an allegory where Enlightenment ideals confront colonial history and power.
Also featured is Fugitive Words (2024), in which language drifts across the composition as fleeting visual fragments, suggesting that meaning is always in motion. Mayakovsky (2025), a Pepper’s Ghost diorama, combines illusion, moving image, and text to evoke the revolutionary spirit of the Russian poet while reflecting on poetry, politics, and history.
Art in conversation with Ravello
Sculptures extend into Villa Rufolo’s gardens overlooking the Amalfi Coast, allowing architecture, landscape, and light to become part of the experience. Accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with essays by Alessio Vlad and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, the exhibition stands among the highlights of this year’s Ravello Festival, offering a compelling insight into an artist who continues to reshape the relationship between drawing, theatre, and contemporary art.
Photography by MATTEO D’ELETTO
Courtesy of FONDAZIONE RAVELLO and GALLERIA LIA RUMMA, Milano/Napoli
