Renowned South African artist William Kentridge returns to New York for the premiere of his new production of Alban Berg's Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera. At the Museum, he joins master printer Andrew Hoyem to discuss the limited-edition letterpress volume of Lulu that the two are creating for Hoyem's Arion Press of San Francisco. The multitalented artist and the master printer discuss how design and imagery aid human imagination, whether by enhancing words on a page or orchestral sound in a theater. They touch upon the role of time in reading and performance, as well as the difference in the two versions of the Lulu plays by Frank Wedekind—Pandora's Box (1904) and Earth Spirit (1895). These works were the basis both for the Alban Berg opera as well as the 1929 silent-film masterpiece Pandora's Box by G. W. Pabst.
Recorded October 13, 2015