Drawing has always been the beginning, says William Kentridge
The South African artist is in the city to display some of his mixed-media works that represent his birthplace.
Internationally acclaimed artist William Kentridge, known for his animated short films and charcoal drawings, is in the city to showcase his works. Titled, Poems I Used to Know, and brought down by Tushar Jiwarajka’s Volte Gallery, on display will be film installation, large drawings, sculptures, etchings, photogravures, tapestry and flipbook films. He says, “This exhibition is a kaleidoscope into some of my artistic leanings, the things that have moulded my sensibilities.”
There is a constant theme through all of his work. “It’s my peculiar way of representing my birthplace — South Africa. While I do not like to portray it as the oppressive place that it was for Black people, my work also does not emphasise the picturesque state of living that white people enjoyed during apartheid. I’ve tried to represent a city in which the duality of man is exposed,” he says adding that the basics of South Africa’s socio-political condition and history must be known to grasp his work fully.
On display is an installation of eight film fragments — I am not me, the horse is not mine, with a recurring reference to fragmentation and coherence. It is based on the absurdist short story The Nose, by Nikolai Gogol, which is about a middle-ranking Russian bureaucrat who wakes one morning to find his nose missing. “Using Gogol’s story as a point of departure, I have tried to spin my own narratives in the works,” he explains.
While most artists stick to one medium, William uses many. “Drawing has always been the beginning and is still the ground of all the things I make. What interests me is the movement of images and ideas across all these different media — how a series of etchings leads to a theatre piece, how work on an opera spawns not just drawings, but prints, sculpture, and film, and how the work in one medium bleeds into the forms of another,” he explains. And will we see some Indian-inspired works? “I know very little about India’s art world but I have wanted to do a project in India for some time now,” he says.
When and Where: Till March 20, 11am to 7 pm, Volte Gallery, Colaba