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Indepth Arts News:
"William Kentridge: Works on Paper from 1980's and 1990's"
2007-02-01 until 2007-03-03
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
New York, NY,
USA United States of America
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present an exhibition of prints and drawings from the 1980s and 1990s by the renowned South African artist William Kentridge (b. 1955). This exhibition provides a rare glimpse of these works, which provide the basis for his celebrated short animated films. In a straightforward and recognizable style, Kentridge´s works on paper bring into full view the horrors caused by the Apartheid in South Africa (1948 — 1994), and the ensuing collective amnesia since its dissolution. By often times using himself as a model or reinterpreting imagery from popular culture, he seeks to convey the enduring need to acknowledge and account for the country´s past.
This message does not end with Kentridge´s works and their reference to the Apartheid, but rather can be applied to other cultures, as well as recent and present conditions of exploitation. The ultimate objective of the artist´s works is perhaps best articulated in his own words:
I have never tried to make illustrations of apartheid, but the drawings and the films are certainly spawned by, and feed off, the brutalised society left in its wake. I am interested in a political art, that is to say, an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain endings. An art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay.
Thus they hold an eternal significance that eerily resonates everywhere at anytime, and it is up to the viewer to recognize its personal implication, ‘wake up’ and take action.
IMAGE
William Kentridge
Conservationist Ball
Charcoal, pastel and gouache on paper
59 x 106 in.
149.86 x 269.24 cm.
1985
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