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Indepth Arts News: "The First American Retrospective of William Kentridge" 2001-06-02 until 2001-09-16 New Museum of Contemporary Art New York, NY, USA
The first American retrospective of internationally
acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge opens at the New Museum of
Contemporary Art on June 2, 2001 and remains on view through September 16,
2001. The exhibition includes eleven of Kentridge's animated films together
with over 60 drawings, two new sculptural installations, and videotapes of
theater and opera productions designed and scripted by the artist. Known for
expressing the complex political and historical realities of his homeland,
Kentridge's poetic and haunting work transcends the problems of South Africa
to address the human condition in general.
Co-organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago, William Kentridge will travel across the United
States over the next 18 months, concluding in the artist's native South
Africa in 2003. Philip Morris Companies is the sponsor of the national and
international tours of William Kentridge.
At the core of the exhibition are Kentridge's animated films including
Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris (1989), WEIGHING...and WANTING
(1997-97), and Stereoscope (1999). Based on vigorous black-and-white
charcoal drawings frequently enhanced by strokes of red or blue pastel,
Kentridge's short animations are an ongoing narrative featuring the
pin-stripe-suited, factory-owner Soho Eckstein whose guilt-laden memory
characterizes one aspect of contemporary South Africa and his alter ego,
Felix Teitlebaum, a thoughtful artist who competes for the attentions of
Soho's wife. The characters navigate a hypnotic vortex of civil strife,
social inequity, and industrial pillage. Images of tenderness alternate with
violence and fantasy as Soho and Felix explore the interrelation of
identity, memory, guilt, and forgiveness against the backdrop of a decimated
landscape.
Each film, which varies in length from three to eight minutes, vividly
illustrates the process and complexity of drawing. The artist develops each
sequence by photographing hundreds of modifications, additions, and erasures
to a single drawing. Throughout the exhibition, substantive groupings of
Kentridge's drawings for projection are presented with corresponding
films.
Kentridge's theater projects, which are shown as video excerpts, include
Faustus in Africa (1995), a version of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe's
celebrated story; Il Ritorno d'Ulisse (1998), an adaptation of Claudio
Monteverdi's 1641 opera based on Homer's epic; and Ubu and the Truth
Commission (1997) in which Alfred Jarry's satire about a ridiculous but
deadly despot signifies the South African process of reconciling the legacy
of apartheid.
The artist's most recent work is represented by Medicine Chest (2001), a
sculptural installation that funnels film images though a mirrored medicine
chest. Created especially for the exhibition, the installation underscores
the theatricality of his imagery and exemplifies the interdisciplinary
fusion unique to Kentridge's work.
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