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Kentridge’s transformations of drawings into animated films strike me as dark expressionist landscapes, CT scans of a history of violent repression and memory, guilt and forgetting. –- Johannes Birringer
Through his animated films, theatrical productions, and graphic work, William Kentridge addresses the personal and social traumas that are the vestiges of South African apartheid. His ongoing series of short animated films Drawings for Projection (begun in 1989) feature two principal characters, who function as the artist’s alter egos: Soho Eckstein, an avaricious South African mining magnate in a pinstriped suit and tie, and Felix Teitlebaum, shown naked and vulnerable to apartheid’s devastating acts.
Kentridge created the sixth film History of the Main Complaint in 1996 during the initial hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, at which apartheid’s crimes were first publicly admitted while the perpetrators were granted indemnity in the hope of healing profound social and historical wounds in this post-apartheid society. In the film Soho lies comatose in a hospital ward, suffering from the weight of his past acts as well as those for which he is implicated due to his race and class. MRIs and CAT scans reveal his affliction, as memories of violence committed against black South Africans float across the screen. The relationship between individual and collective guilt is played out when Soho regains consciousness only through acknowledging his own responsibility. –- Guggenheim.com
Most of the films in this series, titled Drawings for Projection are set in the devastated landscape south of Johannesburg where derelict mine and factories, mine dumps and slime dams have created a terrain of nostalgia and loss. Kentridge’s repeated erasure and redrawing, which leave marks but not complete transformation, together with the jerky movement of the animation, operate in parallel with his depiction of human processes, both physical and political, enacted on the landscape and, in this film in particular, on human bodies. –- Elizabeth Manchester
In Felix in Exile, the fifth film of the series made between September 1993 and February 1994, Kentridge depicts the barren East Rand landscape as witness to the exploitation of and violence against both natural and human resources. Isolated in a hotel room, Felix peruses the survey charts of Nandi, a young black woman who maps the history of the terrain. Figures and structures are subsumed into the landscape or night sky, allegories for how the land can bear the scars of crimes against humanity. –- Guggenheim.com
Black Box / Chambre Noire consists of animated films, kinetic sculptural objects, drawings, and a mechanized theatre in miniature. In the work, Kentridge considers the term “black box” in three senses: a “black box” theatre, a “chambre noire” as it relates to photography, and the “black box” flight data recorder used to record information in an airline disaster. Kentridge explores constructions of history and meaning, while examining the processes of grief, guilt, culpability, and expiation, and the shifting vantage points of political engagement and responsibility. The development of visual technologies and the history of colonialism intersect in Black Box / Chambre Noire through Kentridge’s reflection on the history of the German colonial presence in Africa, in particular the 1904 German massacre of the Hereros in Southwest Africa (now Namibia). –- Maria-Christina Villaseñor
The filmic anamorphosis, What Will Come, draws on the idea of the picture puzzle that originated in the sixteenth century. Kentridge translates this play with perception that operates with distorted images that can only be deciphered from a certain angle to his film. The technique of cylinder mirror anamorphosis he employs is a special form of anamorphosis that is based on the addition of a further level of perception. It is not enough to change one’s point of view but a special seeing machine is essential to decode the picture: a cylindrical mirror with a certain radius that reflects the distorted image, “straightening” it “optically.” Producing such complicated distorted pictures requires a profound knowledge of mathematical rules and optical foundations. Relying on a special graphic grid, the preparatory sketch is transferred to the anamorphotic mode segment by segment, and the curvature of the mirror that is to correct the distortion has to be precisely calculated. –- outsidetheivorytower.blogspot.com
‘History of the Main Complaint is based on twenty-one drawings. It was made shortly after the establishment in South Africa of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was set up to conduct a series of public hearings into abuses of human rights perpetrated during the apartheid era. The hearings, in which individuals told their stories of personal suffering, were held in order to make reparation for abuse and in the hope of creating reconciliation between peoples. The underlying theme of this film is a (self) recognition of white responsibility. This is played out through a ‘medical’ investigation into the body of Soho Eckstein, the white property-developing magnate and greedy-capitalist protagonist of most of the preceding films, which provides the starting point for a revelation of conscience.’ — tate.org.uk
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p.s. Hey. ** Ian, Hi. Yeah, I thought I’d drop that plumber’s videos into the mix of here and what happened. Oh, I see, about ‘Routine’. Awesome, that’s big — your first real work! Yeah, I too end up mapping out a bunch of stuff that I don’t end up using. Finding that balance between feeling prepared to go where you want to go and letting yourself break pre-set rules while writing is the place to be, I think. But, for me at least, the prep helps. Even knowing what is ultimately unnecessary or unfeasible is a plus. Anyway, great to talk with you about writing, and have an excellent today. ** Misanthrope, It sounds like that someone was a know-it-all. Quite a bit of nerve there to think he knows what hell would be. Oh, man, that’s not good about the leg swelling. Yeah, that needs to be assessed by experts. I hope it’s something that a med will get rid of. You can’t fuck around at her age, unfortunately. Let me know how it goes. Oh, god, taxes. Good to be reminded, I guess. It’s too easy to forget about that shit over here. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you! ** Dominik, Hi!!!! Glad you dug it. It was kind of a trip to find those videos and approach them as someone who’s not just looking into their own pipes. I don’t know why Iggy got in there. It’s like … I almost never remember my dreams, but then I will one morning, and I’ll have dreamt about some super random person or celebrity or someone who I don’t even remember having thought consciously about. I thought about being specific with the anime but I hadn’t had my usual amount of coffee when I did the p.s. yesterday, and I didn’t trust my judgement. Speaking of, I think I have to go find ‘Sensitive Pornograph’, thank you for the tip. There was this young Japanese woman in Tokyo years ago who turned my first three novels into pornographic mangas, and that was cool. Yaoi love and Shota love having a crazed, live-streamed 24 hour PNP-fueled pay-per-view TikTok orgy as a SCAB benefit, G. ** Bill, You would almost have to be. I have seen those stories, yes, sir. Weekend starts tomorrow, or, even better, this evening. Hang in there. ** T, Hey, T. Me too, I agree re: the plumber’s thing. Strange, and yet not, isn’t it? An experimental filmmaker of my acquaintance sent me a link to Louis’s YouTube page, and the rest is history or at least a post. If I lived in Brussels, I would definitely hire him. Or maybe even hire him as a camera-person on Zac’s and my new film. No, I think the pipes are pretty small and tight, and he’s remote controlling it. Like, as someone else mentioned, colostomies, etc. I aim to find the perfect balance between the startling and the delightful, so thank you! ** Steve Erickson, Not that I know of, ha ha. Think it’s a cult, word of mouth kind of thing. Everyone, Two reviews by Steve for you today. (1) Stanley Kwan’s CENTER STAGE, and (2) A SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME. I loved serpentwithfeet’s first album, but, based on his recent EP, I’m a little concerned that the thrill of his thing might not have a lot of legs. I want to hear the new album, but I thought the last EP was a little too familiar. We had exterminators fill our apartment’s holes recently due to many mice constantly roaming about our place, and it kind of almost worked. Now there’s only one mouse roaming around. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. Yeah, kind of mystical comedies crossed with hypnosis videos plus a bit of Stan Brakhage or something, I don’t know, ha ha. Congrats on the bonus week! I’m happy that ‘Funeral Rites’ sat so well with you. It’s my favourite Genet, as I previously mentioned. Mm, it might well have had an influence on my stuff, yes, that would make sense. I remember Propaganda, the magazine. I used to pick it up once in a while. I had friends were involved in it or modelled for it or something, I can’t quite remember. The test-shoot turned out to be just sitting around a table talking about camera angles and stuff, so it was grindstone-y. Soho Press, who’s publishing ‘I Wished’, wrote to tell me they’ve changed the cover of my novel because the marketing dept. didn’t like it, so now it has a completely different cover that I’m waiting for the go-ahead to upload here. Other than that, just some new film related stuff. What in the world will Friday saddle us with? Reportage? ** Okay. Here’s a quite old guest-post made for the blog years ago by the long lost d.l. Hyrule Dungeon about the films of the artist William Kentridge that I thought you or at least some of you might enjoy. See you tomorrow.
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