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Our small team are working as quickly and safely as possible to prepare and send online orders.
Please expect delays to our service and thanks in advance for your patience. For more information on delivery times and terms, please click here.
All artworks are available for Delivery. You can find our Art Delivery Charges here. We have temporarily stopped shipping to EEA countries. The RA is temporarily closed, collection is not available at this time.
Updated 19 May 2020
All artworks are available for Delivery. You can find our Art Delivery Charges here. The Royal Academy is temporarily closed, Collection is not available at this time.
Our team will be in touch to confirm delivery details once your order is placed.
The Pool Ahead is Not to be Trusted is a new RA Edition by William Kentridge Hon RA. The print, made in a limited edition of 40, is a sugarlift aquatint, a technique of etching that enables the artist to etch marks that are similar to those produced by a brush into the plate.
‘The Pool Ahead is not to be Trusted’ is a line from the libretto for Waiting for the Sibyl, a stage piece for recorded music and voice, performance, shadows, and projection, presented at the Rome Opera in September 2019. Kentridge is working with Nhlanhla Mahlangu and five singers to create a captivating and haunting ‘choral sound world’ with Kyle Shepherd as both co-composer and musical director.
William Kentridge writes about the project:
“In 1968 Alexander Calder made a production for the Rome Opera called Work in Progress. On stage were some of his mobiles, painted backdrops, cyclists riding around the stage, with different pieces of music by an Italian composer. Fifty years after its first performance, Rome Opera is reviving the Calder work. Waiting for the Sibyl will be a companion piece and response to Work in Progress.
There is a story of the Cumean Sibyl, a prophetess. She would write people's fortunes or fates on oak leaves. The pile of oak leaves sat at the mouth of her cave. People would come to take the leaf on which was written their fate. But inevitably a wind would come up and swirl the leaves out of order, so you never knew if the leaf you had picked was your fate or not. The circling of the leaves in the wind, or the swirling of pages of the unbound book in the projections, becomes akin to the revolving leaves of the sculptures in the Calder.”
The themes of the project concern destiny, fate and our attempts to escape it. Kentridge notes that the contemporary Sibyl is the algorithm, which knows our future and our choices better than we do ourselves.
Buy art at the RA
RA Editions The RA Editions programme publishes and showcases prints by Royal Academicians and invited artists. All are available to buy online, from the RA Shop in Gallery X as well as through a series of displays within the Keeper’s House and Burlington Gardens. The programme generates valuable revenue for the RA and, in particular, the RA Schools.
https://shop.royalacademy.org.uk/the-pool-ahead-is-not-to-be-trusted-by-william-kentridge-hon-ra30683The Pool Ahead is Not to be Trustedhttps://shop.royalacademy.org.uk/media/catalog/product/9/2/92087927-the-pool-ahead-web.jpg38003800GBPInStock/Art/All Artworks/RA Editions/Art/All Artworks/Edits/New Edits/Spotlight Collection: In the Studio/Art/All Artworks/Figurative/Edits/New Edits/Refresh Your Backdrop/Christmas/Christmas Gifting/The RA Collector/Christmas/Christmas Gifting/The Wordsmith<p>This limited-edition print by William Kentridge Hon RA is on show in the Shenkman Bar, Keeper’s House from 12 September 2019.</p> <p><i>The Pool Ahead is Not to be Trusted </i>is a new RA Edition by William Kentridge Hon RA. The print, made in a limited edition of 40, is a sugarlift aquatint, a technique of etching that enables the artist to etch marks that are similar to those produced by a brush into the plate.</p>
<p>‘The Pool Ahead is not to be Trusted’ is a line from the libretto for <i>Waiting for the Sibyl</i>, a stage piece for recorded music and voice, performance, shadows, and projection, presented at the Rome Opera in September 2019. Kentridge is working with Nhlanhla Mahlangu and five singers to create a captivating and haunting ‘choral sound world’ with Kyle Shepherd as both co-composer and musical director.</p>
<p>William Kentridge writes about the project:<br /> <br /> “In 1968 Alexander Calder made a production for the Rome Opera called <i>Work in Progress</i>. On stage were some of his mobiles, painted backdrops, cyclists riding around the stage, with different pieces of music by an Italian composer. Fifty years after its first performance, Rome Opera is reviving the Calder work. <i>Waiting for the Sibyl </i>will be a companion piece and response to <i>Work in Progress.</i></p>
<p><i></i>There is a story of the Cumean Sibyl, a prophetess. She would write people's fortunes or fates on oak leaves. The pile of oak leaves sat at the mouth of her cave. People would come to take the leaf on which was written their fate. But inevitably a wind would come up and swirl the leaves out of order, so you never knew if the leaf you had picked was your fate or not. The circling of the leaves in the wind, or the swirling of pages of the unbound book in the projections, becomes akin to the revolving leaves of the sculptures in the Calder.”<i><br /></i></p>
<p>The themes of the project concern destiny, fate and our attempts to escape it. Kentridge notes that the contemporary Sibyl is the algorithm, which knows our future and our choices better than we do ourselves.</p>
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<p><b>Buy art at the RA</b></p>
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<p><span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">RA Editions<br /></span>The RA Editions programme publishes and showcases prints by Royal Academicians and invited artists. All are available to buy online, from the RA Shop in Gallery X as well as through a series of displays within the Keeper’s House and Burlington Gardens. The programme generates valuable revenue for the RA and, in particular, the RA Schools.</p>00add-to-cartstore_type:Art£3000 - £4000Art45 x 50cmSugarlift Aquatint40Medium (41 to 60cm)Art
