Two Kentridge exhibitions for Jozi
Mary Alexander
6 July 2005
South Africa's premier artist has headed home, with two major exhibitions in Johannesburg in July. One is Preparing the Flute at the Goodman Gallery, an exploration of the artist's interpretation of Mozart's The Magic Flute, and the other a major retrospective at the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Johannesburg-born Kentridge is South Africa's most famous artist, in demand by the major institutions of the world. Yet he uses an essentially simple technique - charcoal drawings with touches of pastel colour. With these he has created an astonishing body of work.
Since the 1990s, Kentridge has gained international recognition for his animated short films based on "erasure": drawing in charcoal, filming a few frames, erasing, then drawing some more.
His work also includes powerful etchings, lithographs, silkscreens, collage and sculpture.
Preparing the Flute
Late April 2005 saw the opening of Kentridge’s
interpretation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at La Monnaie opera house in Brussels, Belgium.
Coming out of this work is Preparing the Flute, an exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg from 4 to 16 July. Preparing the Flute is essentially a collection of drawings, etchings and film forming the basis of Kentridge's explorations for the production.
 A charcoal drawing from Kentridge's design of The Magic Flute (Image: Goodman Gallery)
Kentridge brings the Brussels theatre in miniature - the working model used in preparation for the opera - into the gallery. Animated sequences from the full-scale production of The Magic Flute are projected on screens inside the theatre, similar to the way they appear on the real stage.
Kentridge
usually creates his films and uses a composer to add the score. In this exhibition the composer is Mozart. In Kentridge's interpretation of the opera, the character Tamino tames rhinoceroses with his magic flute. Film at the exhibition shows an animated rhino doing balletic circus tricks to Mozart's music.
 Film at the exhibition shows an animated rhino doing balletic circus tricks to Mozart's music (Image: Grinnell College)
The exhibition also includes many of the working drawings and fragments used in creating animation for The Magic Flute. These remnants and sketches reveal his process of erasing and redrawing to create animated sequences.
"One of the fascinating things about William Kentridge's films is how they let the process show," US art critic Janet Koplos writes in the
publication Art in America.
"Because he draws, shoots, erases and shoots again to create his imagery - rather than painting animation cells or digitally developing scenes - I am conscious of his means, even his touch. It was Kentridge's genius to show how the directness of drawing could survive the indirectness of a camera-based art."
William Kentridge Retrospective
Kentridge's drawings, films, video and sculpture are also on show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery until the end of October, in the artist's first retrospective exhibition in his home city.
It was first curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev for the Castello di Rivoli in Turin in early 2004. Later that year and in early 2005 it was seen in Düsseldorf, Sydney and Montreal; after Johannesburg will go on to Miami.
A survey of Kentridge's body of work with a particular focus on recent art, it has drawings by the artist dating as far back as 1979, major early
animated films, and a selection of projections on to objects and furniture. Recent works based on the artist's interest in shadows as well as in the techniques of early cinema are also on exhibit.
 Sleeper - Red, 1998 (Image: art.co.za)
Partially funded by the City of Johannesburg, the exhibition is accompanied by music by composer Phillip Miller.
It includes a set of short films, Seven Fragments for Georges Melies, and the large bronzes Shadow Quartet. Kentridge's more familiar films, charcoal drawings and shadow sculptures are also on display.
In the gallery's downstairs auditorium are Kentridge's late-1980s series of short films, Johannesburg, Second Greatest City after Paris. Featuring the artist's characters Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitlebaum, the films explore the dark and complex
times of late-apartheid South Africa.
 Zeno Writing II (4), 2003 (Image: art.co.za)
Kentridge has a passion for his city - and it shows in his work.
"I think Johannesburg works hard, struggles to revive its centre: to not be a city of shopping malls," he told The Star newspaper. "Every project, be it dance or music, is a triumph in itself.
"I'm delighted about coming to the Joburg Art Gallery. Hillbrow and Joubert Park are where my grandparents grew up; it's the heart of the city. The gallery is a better and more beautiful space than any of the other museums around the world that have hosted this retrospective."
William Kentridge
William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, where he continues to live and work today.
He earned a BA in politics and African
studies in 1976 from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
From 1976 to 1978 he studied fine art at the Johannesburg Art Foundation, where he later taught printmaking. In 1981 and 82 he completed a course in mime and theatre at L'Ecole Jacques LeCoq in Paris.
Throughout his career, Kentridge has moved between film, drawing and theatre. Since participating in Dokumenta X in Kassel in 1997, solo shows of his work have been hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and MCA San Diego.
In 1998 and 1999 a survey exhibition of his work was seen in Brussels, Munich, Barcelona, London, Marseille and Graz. In 1999 he was awarded the Carnegie Medal at the Carnegie International 1999/2000.
In 2001 a survey show of Kentridge's was launched in Washington, moving to New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Cape Town. A shadow oratorio, Confessions of Zeno, was created for Documenta XI in 2002. In October 2003 Kentridge received the Goslar Kaisserring
in recognition of his contribution to contemporary art.
January 2004 marked the opening of Preparing the Flute, destined for museums in Turin, Düsseldorf, Sydney, Montreal and Johannesburg. Current projects include a commission for the Berlin Guggenheim, to open in October 2005.
- Preparing the Flute runs at the Goodman Gallery until 16 July, and the William Kentridge Retrospective at the Johannesburg Art Gallery until 31 October.
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