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William Kentridge
"Casspirs Full of Love," 1989/2000
drypoint
65 3/4 x 17 inches
edition of 30
Published by David Krut Fine Art, New York/Johannesburg
Collection of the Artist |
" .
. . It should be possible to make a political art that captures
within it the kind of ironies, ambiguities,
and contradictions that are there in the political world. One of
the things that one normally associates with political art is a
clarity of purpose, of thought, of program, and I think that clarity
of thought, purpose, and program is often absent in the real world,
and that behind the clarity of rhetoric, there is often a great
confusion of goals, aims, and agendas. The films have been saying
or have been trying to say, in a way, that that open-endedness
which is part of the films does also reflect an open-endedness
outside of them."1
In this survey
exhibition of the graphic work of South African artist William
Kentridge, a wide array of images and themes fluctuate
between the political history of South Africa, and the artist’s
personal, yet universal, poetic commentary. Kentridge works across
several creative fields and the narratives found in his prints,
films, and theatrical productions collapse historicism and contemporaneity
into a distinctive palimpsest where a panorama of characters grapple
with a range of human traits. His richly associative art feels
familiar, and its complexity stems in part from what the artist
describes as an "anxiety about not coming from the center,
but from the periphery, so more is needed."2
Part of the
white minority in South Africa, Kentridge was born in Johannesburg
in 1955, a descendent of Lithuanian immigrants
and the son of two distinguished anti-apartheid lawyers. He studied
politics and African studies at the University of the Witwatersrand
in the 1970s, painting at the Johannesburg Art Foundation from
1976—78, and mime and theatre in Paris at the École
Jacques Lecoq in 1981—82. Upon his return to South Africa
in the early 1980s, the artist worked in experimental theatre and
as an art director, and began producing his animated "drawings
for projection," consisting of charcoal drawings that are
filmed, erased, redrawn, and then filmed again, frame by frame.
These provocative short films, where imperfect erasure is part
of the substance of the films, were introduced outside of South
Africa to international acclaim in the late 1990s, after sanctions
and boycotts were lifted with the end of apartheid in 1994.
This exhibition
features over ninety prints ranging in date from 1976—2004, and includes examples of numerous printmaking processes
such as linocut, sugar lift, silkscreen, drypoint, etching, and
photogravure. It chronicles Kentridge’s development as an
artist, beginning with the 1976 linocut of his grandfather in a
suit and hat at Muizenberg Beach in South Africa, through a variety
of prints reminiscent of the artist’s film and theatrical
productions, such as Felix in Exile, 1994, and Learning
the Flute,
2004.
Perhaps one
of the more disconcerting images in this exhibition can be found
in the drypoint Casspirs Full of Love, 1989/2000,
depicting a ladder-like form holding seven decapitated heads. A
Casspir is an armored personnel carrier used by South African police
and defense forces, and the ladder/coffin in the print mimics the
Casspir’s shape. The print and its title were suggested by
a radio program Kentridge heard in 1989 that broadcast messages
of support to South African service personnel. One mother closed
her message with "from Mum, with Casspirs full of love."3 The
resulting print was the artist’s response to the ambiguity
of what this apartheid-era mother might have been referring to.
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William Kentridge
Ubu Tells the Truth, Act 1 Scene 2, 1996-1997
suite of eight etchings
hard ground, soft ground, aquatint, drypoint, engraving on
Fabriano Rosapina Bianco 220 grams/square meter paper
14.17 x 19.69 inches
edition of 45
Published by Malcolm Christian, The Caversham Press, South
Africa
Collection of the Artist |
Like
other artists who have commented on extraordinary events in their
art—artists such as Goya, Picasso, Kollwitz, and
Beckmann—Kentridge’s images and visual narratives run
the gamut from apartheid and its aftermath to the props of domestic
life. Themes that appear in Kentridge’s work include: avarice
and greed; aspects of communication and surveillance; the tragicomedy
of modernity; and the powerful shadow myth of colonialism. Commenting
on his studio practices, the artist states that the "authority
of knowledge and certainty are the worst way to begin."4 Indeed,
it is the inherent fallibility of hubris that Kentridge repeatedly
explores through selective references to historical literary and
theatrical narratives.
In the catalogue
essay "Resistance and Ground: The Prints
of William Kentridge," poet and author Susan Stewart states
that "Just as Kentridge’s theater work has been concerned
with reviving and juxtaposing early and contemporary art, so does
his printmaking turn back and renew many dimensions of the traditions
of the form, including its relations to theater, chronicle, and
moral reflections."5 Some of the repositioned narratives
that appear in this exhibition were conceived as part of larger,
collaborative projects with other artists. They include the etchings,
Industry and Idleness, 1986, from the project Hogarth
in Johannesburg,
and Little Morals, 1991, based on Theodor Adorno’s Minima
Moralia. Other references to moralizing tales are found in the
suite of etchings, Ubu Tells the Truth, 1996—97, which alludes
to both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid
South Africa and playwright Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, 1896,
an absurd tale of greed, cowardice, and stupidity. The print ensemble,
Zeno at 4 AM, 2001, comes from Italo Svevo’s novel, The
Confessions of Zeno, 1923, and both the Ubu and Zeno print
suites either informed or were informed by productions directed
by Kentridge, created
in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company based in Cape
Town, South Africa. The artist chose the story in Svevo’s
novel because it is about a character living in a provincial city
on the periphery who has perfect self-knowledge but is ineffective
in using that knowledge to act. In The Confessions of Zeno, Kentridge
saw numerous parallels to what it felt like to live in Johannesburg
in the 1980s.
Later works
in this exhibition, such as Portage, 2000, and Atlas
Procession,
2000, are comprised of starkly black processional figures
superimposed on antique encyclopedia pages or maps. In explaining
his use of the silhouette, Kentridge states that he is aware of "the
limits of knowledge because there are limits to looking when looking
at shadows, as they are the deception of the real."6 By
using the illusionary mediation of shadows in his prints and theatrical
productions, he asks how to "bring back the light" given "our
willing suspension of belief or unwilling suspension of disbelief." Further,
through the deceptive simplicity of shadow figures, Kentridge asks
the question, "Once awareness of deception is achieved, who
has the duty to bring the truth beyond the shadows to the light?"7
Unlike traditional
narratives with beginnings, middles, and ends, William Kentridge’s
art is fundamentally rhizomic in nature.8 Similar
to plants that propagate themselves through their root systems,
Kentridge’s prints, films, and theatrical productions are
interconnected, and experiencing any of them is akin to an Internet
search that veers off in many related directions. By resisting
linear thinking and hierarchical structures, William Kentridge
has, for over twenty-five years, assiduously argued for "open-endedness." Although
he reflects on the classical drama of hubris and its inevitable
tragic denouement, as well as the convenience provided by the erasure
of historical memory, in his art, Kentridge attempts to keep nihilism
at bay by bringing "light to the shadows."
Kathleen
McManus Zurko
January
2005
Notes
Drawing the Passing, VHS, directed by Maria Anna Tappeiner and William
Kentridge (Johannesburg, South Africa: David Krut Publishing, 1999).
2William Kentridge, (lecture, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland,
OH, November 2, 2003.)
3 William Kentridge, William Kentridge Prints (Grinnell,
IA: Grinnell, College, 2004), 44. According to Kentridge, the anagram "casspirs" comes
from the initials S.A.P. (South African Police) and C.S.I.R. (Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research), who jointly developed
the armored personnel
carrier.
4 William Kentridge, (lecture, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA,
November 20, 2004).
5 Susan
Stewart, "Resistance and Ground: The Prints of
William Kentridge," in William Kentridge Prints, 16.
6 Kentridge, see note 5 above.
7 Ibid.
8 This
comparison of Kentridge’s art practices to a rhizome
derives from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s "Introduction:
Rhizome," in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translation
and foreword by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1987). In the book’s introduction, Deleuze and Guattari argue
against linear hierarchy and for multiplicity, and use the example
of a rhizomatous
root system (e.g., ginger or crabgrass) to suggest that there are
many points of entry in an open system.
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