ART CITIES:N.York-William Kentridge

William Kentridge is the child of Jewish liberal lawyers who defended victims of apartheid in South Africa, and moral and complex political questions underpin all his work. Often working on paper with charcoal and ink, Kentridge uses collage techniques on a large scale. The paper works often form the background of his films, as he animates the drawings and overlays this scene-setting with live-action moving image to create a highly distinctive aesthetic.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Marian Goodman Gallery

“More Sweetly Play the Dance” and “Notes Toward a Model Opera”, two multiscreen film installations by William Kentridge, are on presentation for the first time in the USA. “More Sweetly Play the Dance” is displayed across eight screens, the artist refers to his video work as “filmed drawings” and creates them by recording charcoal marks made on paper, in this case overlaid with real figures. The music is discordant: part triumphant, part topsy-turvy, it fits the mismatched procession. Kentridge’s work is made acutely important and upsetting by its current climate. His work is informed by his interest in migration: “My concern has been both with the existential solitude of the walker, and with social solitude – lines of people walking in single file from one country to another, from one life to an unknown future”. As the migrant crisis in Europe becomes increasingly desperate, Kentridge’s work becomes a bleak mirror. “Notes Towards a Model Opera” is rooted in extensive research into the intellectual, political, and social history of modern China, from Lu Xun to revolutionary theater, that Kentridge undertook in preparation for this exhibition, this three-channel projection explores dynamics of cultural diffusion and metamorphosis through the formal prism of the eight model operas of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The piece considers these didactic ballets both as a cultural phenomenon unto itself and as part of a history of dance that spans continents and centuries.

Info: Marian Goodman Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, New York, Duration: 12/1-20/2/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00, http://mariangoodman.com