Haile Selassie

FOR THE FORMATTED VERSION WITH KENTRIDGE'S DRAWINGS GO TO: https://eternaltiber.net/triumphs-and-laments-research/

This is a guide to the iconography of William Kentridge’s Triumphs & Laments, the 500-meter-long frieze of colossal figures traced into the black accretions on the Tiber Embankments between Ponte Sisto and Ponte Mazzini in Rome in early Spring 2016:  http://www.tevereterno.it/arts/triumphs-and-laments/. The guide was compiled at the request of Kristin Jones, artistic director of the project, and was initially part of a Guidebook cell phone app, which has since been discontinued.

Prior to compiling the guide texts, with generous help from dozens of colleagues and students, I had the immense pleasure of serving as Curator of Historical Research for Triumphs & Laments, overseeing the research group at John Cabot University which formulated the chronological database ('timeline') of images from the history of art, cinema, and journalism provided to William Kentridge to inspire his drawings for the frieze. Our research continued and augmented that of Andrea Biagioni and Sara Spizzichino of Tevereterno.

Please share these texts with friends, colleagues, and students. Writing the guide was our labor of love for Rome, for William Kentridge and his work, and for the joy of collective creativity that made Triumphs & Laments a reality.

NOTE: In the pdf version available online before May 20, 2017, the hyperlinks were inoperative. In the current Word document, they work.