The Bowdoin Orient

February 2, 2001
Volume CXXXII, Number 14

Kentridge exhibit: a study of South Africa

by MEGHAN MACNEIL - CONTRIBUTOR

You've walked by it a million times, have class within a hundred feet of it, admired it from the quad, and had lunch on its steps; that's right - the art museum, and William Kentridge's new exhibit entitled " STEREOSCOPE " and " WEIGHING...and WANTING " is just one more reason to pay this wonderful place a visit.
Kentridge, an internationally-renowned contemporary South African artist, was born in Johannesburg in 1955 and was very much influenced by the forces and issues surrounding apartheid. The son of a prominent anti-apartheid lawyer, Kentridge was exposed at an early age to the horrors of apartheid which are reflected indirectly in his intimate films based around the two central characters of Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitelbaum.
Kentridge's biography is important in understanding his art; his life is deeply intertwined with his work, producing films dealing with unspecified and personal conflicts which allude to broader social conflicts. Kentridge is neither an active participant nor a distant observer in these struggles, providing us with the opportunity to both understand these conflicts and feel them personally.
Madeleine Grynsztejn, Senior Curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, spoke last Saturday in Kresge on Kentridge's technique, characteristics, and influences. To create these films Kentridge makes a few central drawings and alters them thousands of times, recording the results of each erasure or addition on 16 mm film. Grynsztejn noted that the camera itself remains fixed, meaning that to make a close up or pan out Kentridge physically draws each slight alteration physically. This intensive technique which Grynsztejn called " stalking the drawing " can take up to a week to produce only 40 minutes of film. The result is a film which gives the feeling of being inside a sort of living drawing.
The characters of Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitelbaum are central to all of Kentridge's films. Eckstein, a symbol of industrial and capitalist greed, and Teitelbaum, a helpless and sometimes indifferent witness, are at times foils to one another and at other times merge into the same character.
Grynsztejn commented that he makes many references to internal sight by including devices such as microscopes and MRI and x-ray machines, pointing the viewer toward the inner truth of his struggles. The idea of memory and remembrance is also important to Kentridge. This is visible in the constant erasures and additions made to his drawings which remain visible in each new frame and in his depictions of landscape in which the "natural process of erosion also seeks to blot out memories. "
Grynsztejn stated that Kentridge has been influenced by artists as diverse as Goya and the German Expressionists, and most heavily by the art of the South African resistance movement of the 1970s and 80s. Professor Daniel Lieberfeld of the Government Department spoke on Wednesday on the sociological and political contexts of the resistance movement which surrounded Kentridge.
Lieberfeld asked the question, "What kind of strange life does one lead as a middle-class white South African?" He pointed to the fragility of the South African reconciliation and to Kentridge's notion that to feel the guilt of apartheid is only the first step to reformation.
On top of his flourishing career in the visual arts, Kentridge also has a strong background in theater which becomes plain when you first walk into the gallery. There is a collection of drawings from "WEIGHING...and WANTING ", which, although incredibly perceptive and haunting in their own right, at the same time give the impression of old film props that you might find on an MGM set. Watching these films feels as if you've somehow been allowed to read Kentridge's diary, and what he has to say is so sincere that you can't help but feel something yourself.
This incredible exhibit is on display at the Museum of Art through March 18th, Monday-Friday 10am-5pm, Sundays 2-5pm. Student-led tours are available through the museum by calling 725-3743. Don't miss Professor McGee of the Art History Department this Wednesday, Feb.7 at the museum when she gives a talk entitled "William Kentridge and South African Art: A Historical Perspective".