William Kentridge, one of the most influential and visionary artists of our time, returns to question history through an immersive experience of images and sound, featuring original music by Philip Miller.
A multifaceted artist working across drawing, theatre, animation, and opera, Kentridge has always conceived his practice as a vast visual and musical collage. Central to this journey is his collaboration with composer Philip Miller, begun in the 1990s and over time becoming one of the most original partnerships on the contemporary scene.
Just as they seem on the verge of dissolving into memory, both Triumphs and Laments – the monumental, ephemeral frieze created along the Tiber in 2016 – and the powerful processional work The Head and the Load – dedicated in 2018 to the history of Africa and Africans in the First World War – are brought back to MAXXI by Kentridge and Miller in the innovative form of a film concert.
The two works are transformed into a new, original visual and musical experience, inviting the audience to think of history not as a linear narrative, but as a collage of memories, contradictions, and acts of resistance.
A vast ribbon of moving images and an enveloping soundscape immerse the viewer in the fragmented memory of history.
Film concert in a prologue and two parts
Two video channels, voices, clarinet, viola, kora, accordion, percussion, piano, 2026
prologue:
Breathe Dissolve Return
6’17”, 2008
first part:
Kaboom
22′, 2026
second part:
Triumphs and Laments
24’40”, 2026
A project curated by Oscar Pizzo and Franco Laera
co-produced by MAXXI and Change Performing Arts
in collaboration with William Kentridge Studio.
TRIUMPHS AND LAMENTS was first presented on 21 April 2016 in Rome as a site-specific work on the initiative of Tevereterno, with artistic direction by Kristin Jones and executive production by THE OFFICE performing arts + film.
KABOOM is drawn from THE HEAD AND THE LOAD, originally produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film on commission from 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Commissions, MASS MoCA, Park Avenue Armory, Ruhrtriennale, and Yale Schwarzman Center, and first presented on 11 July 2018 at the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London. For the original music, Thuthuka Sibisi also collaborated.
William Kentridge, one of the most influential and visionary artists of our time, returns to question history through an immersive experience of images and sound, featuring original music by Philip Miller.
A multifaceted artist working across drawing, theatre, animation, and opera, Kentridge has always conceived his practice as a vast visual and musical collage. Central to this journey is his collaboration with composer Philip Miller, begun in the 1990s and over time becoming one of the most original partnerships on the contemporary scene.
Just as they seem on the verge of dissolving into memory, both Triumphs and Laments – the monumental, ephemeral frieze created along the Tiber in 2016 – and the powerful processional work The Head and the Load – dedicated in 2018 to the history of Africa and Africans in the First World War – are brought back to MAXXI by Kentridge and Miller in the innovative form of a film concert.
The two works are transformed into a new, original visual and musical experience, inviting the audience to think of history not as a linear narrative, but as a collage of memories, contradictions, and acts of resistance.
A vast ribbon of moving images and an enveloping soundscape immerse the viewer in the fragmented memory of history.
Two video channels, voices, clarinet, viola, kora, accordion, percussion, piano, 2026
prologue:
Breathe Dissolve Return
6’17”, 2008
first part:
Kaboom
22′, 2026
second part:
Triumphs and Laments
24’40”, 2026
A project curated by Oscar Pizzo and Franco Laera
co-produced by MAXXI and Change Performing Arts
in collaboration with William Kentridge Studio.
TRIUMPHS AND LAMENTS was first presented on 21 April 2016 in Rome as a site-specific work on the initiative of Tevereterno, with artistic direction by Kristin Jones and executive production by THE OFFICE performing arts + film.
KABOOM is drawn from THE HEAD AND THE LOAD, originally produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film on commission from 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Commissions, MASS MoCA, Park Avenue Armory, Ruhrtriennale, and Yale Schwarzman Center, and first presented on 11 July 2018 at the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London. For the original music, Thuthuka Sibisi also collaborated.