WILLIAM KENTRIDGE | 4 FILMS

William Kentridge is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans drawing, prints, animated film and even intricate theatrical performances. His films, of which the present work is an early example, involve highly detailed stop-motion. Typically, and is the case here, a single drawing is repeatedly altered by hand, lending a sense of movement and plotline distinct to Kentridge’s oeuvre. Kentridge was raised by two prominent civil rights lawyers who became famous for their defense of victims of apartheid. As such, and in addition as an ethnically Jewish white man in South Africa, he comes from a distinctly unique position to observe the past and present sociopolitical anxieties that permeate his home country.

There are four films in this piece which span a total of over twenty-five minutes. The outside cover of the VHS is a screenprint. As in many of Kentridge’s films, sound plays a component. Bodies and landscapes fizzle in and out of the scene, punctuated by words evocative of the proletariat. Kentridge’s work has been widely exhibited, including in solo exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hirschhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.