William Kentridge, Five Themes

Unfortunately (or presciently?) timed to preview of the Whitney Biennial, the MoMA opened South African artist William Kentridge's Five Themes on Tuesday night to a more subdued audience. In the atrium of the second floor contemporary art galleries, Michael Stipe, Marina Abramovic and Anna Deavere Smith mingled under a ceiling conspicuously absent of Gabriel Orozco's monumental sculpture Mobile Matrix. The crowd trickled into the galleries at a pace that allowed for an almost solitary viewing of over 120 of Kentridge's works in a range of media including animated films, drawings, prints, theater models and books.-BRIENNE WALSH