William Kentridge: 'how we make sense of the world'
Today we moved away from photography works and started to look at William Kentridge, an artist specialising in drawn animation. William Kentdrige was born in 1955 in South Africa where he lives and works still to this day. Although he has stayed in south Africa, he is known internationally as his works are shown all over the globe in exhibitions and gallery’s. His work usually raises the issues of an African context, a European exploitation
The image above is a piece of work by William Kentridge, named Johannesburg, 2nd greatest city after Paris. During this time when whites used exploitation by using black people as workers to gather minerals from the grounds. The artist uses the point of the spectator in this image. Looking from behind the figure in the image showing the viewpoint that they see.
William explores the idea of recording the history of drawing, in his case using film. He thought it was a good way to record the process and development of a work of art. His thoughts were that art started well but then it becomes a little too cautious and gets over worked. The idea that the drawing gets filmed means that each moment can be captured and he can go back and see what stage the drawing works and goes over the line of 'overworked'. It follows vision and revisions as it happens. The style William uses when creating art with charcoal means that the grey smudges created don’t disappear; therefore it reveals the history of those changes.
This is something we do now; in my own practice I document my developments by saving and showing my designs at each stage.
The image above was set in the wastelands outside Johannesburg showing the mining activity, the scene is full of junk and rubble showing the remains of activity that moved on, but its also where workers lived, the charcoal style suits this because the griminess echo’s the griminess of the land.
William also made storyboards of his drawings being filmed, before or during. This is a basic and primitive way of drawing but they are powerful. Planning out what he is going to do like someone doing an animation would. They are images of exploitation.
Makes story boards- monument & mine
He storyboards when he makes dig drawings, basic and primitive ways of drawing but powerful
Images of exploitation
These images convey a certain amount of guilt in the eyes of William Kentridge, he tries to engage with the politics going on at that time as a white privileged artist. The works are a contradiction and this can undermine his work sometimes.
In the film 'how we make sense of the world', William comments that the reasons for his films are drawings; it’s the only context they have when he first decides to make them.
Films come out of making an image,
