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Lot Essay
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and dated 7th July 2001, installation instructions.
Born in Johannesburg in 1955, William Kentridge was raised in a politically aware, actively anti-apartheid, white Jewish family. Growing up in a society that believed in white supremacy, he was automatically one of the privileged, but was simultaneously treated as an "other," being a Jew in a purportedly Christian country. Influenced by the brutality and violence he observed in his native land, and concerned that in places in South Africa people are collectively forgetting their tumultous past, Kentridge seeks in his art to remind South Africans of their important cultural history. Although often referring to local occurences, Kentridge also emphasises the universality of human tragedy and believes it can be comprehended without the aid of specific or local references.
In his short film Shadow Procession, Kentridge expresses the toil of living through a period of prolonged violence and exemplifies the dismal memory of the oppressed and their flight from home. The film is segmented into three acts, where in the first we witness a procession of burdened figures slowly moving across the stage from left to right, reminiscent of a scene from a classical Greek frieze. The crowd of figures, comprised of humans and animals, cripples and outcasts, the blind and the lame, are all weighed down by their loads of gear and baggage (both physical and emotional). They appear as anonymous shadows taking part in a united migration. As the spectator, we are not sure where they are going, but we do know that they are determined to get there. The movement of the march is complemented by and choreographed to emotional singing by Alfred Makgalemele, a local South African street musician.
In the second segment, we encounter a colossal Ubu figure with enormous hands and a large swollen belly. Wildly cracking his whip and dancing with arms raised, his grotesque performance responds to the clamour of army commands and gunfire heard in the background. Appropriated from French dramatist Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi, the character was conceived as a "satirical and grotesque expression of the way in which arbitrary power engenders madness" (Christov-Vakargiev 1998, pp. 118-119). Kentridge's Ubu, who appears frequently in his work, serves as a representation of the Truth Commission, which publicly dealt with apartheid issues on television. In the final segment, a cat staggers across the stage moving in time to the music, followed by an enormous eye which rolls from left to right, and reminds the onlooker to pay close attention and to not forget.
"Imagine an underground chamber... with a long entrance open to the daylight... In this chamber are men who have been prisoners since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads. Some way off, behind and higher up, a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners above them, runs a path in front of which there is a curtain wall, like the screen at puppet shows between the operators and the audience, above which they see only the puppets.
Imagine further that there are all sorts of men carrying gear along behind the wall, projecting above it, and including figures of men and animals made of wood and stone and all sorts of other materials, and that some of these men, as we would expect, are talking and some are not. An odd picture and an odd sort of prisoner. They are like us. For tell me, do you think our prisoners could see anything of themselves or their fellows except the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of the cave opposite them? Would they not assume the shadows that they saw were the real thing? And if the wall of their prison opposite them reflected sound, don't you think they would suppose, whenever one of the passers by on the road spoke, that the voice belonged to the shadow on the wall passing before them? They would be bound to think so." (excerpt from William Kentridge, "In Praise of Shadows," exh. cat., William Kentridge, Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, February-April 2005, p. 152).
Born in Johannesburg in 1955, William Kentridge was raised in a politically aware, actively anti-apartheid, white Jewish family. Growing up in a society that believed in white supremacy, he was automatically one of the privileged, but was simultaneously treated as an "other," being a Jew in a purportedly Christian country. Influenced by the brutality and violence he observed in his native land, and concerned that in places in South Africa people are collectively forgetting their tumultous past, Kentridge seeks in his art to remind South Africans of their important cultural history. Although often referring to local occurences, Kentridge also emphasises the universality of human tragedy and believes it can be comprehended without the aid of specific or local references.
In his short film Shadow Procession, Kentridge expresses the toil of living through a period of prolonged violence and exemplifies the dismal memory of the oppressed and their flight from home. The film is segmented into three acts, where in the first we witness a procession of burdened figures slowly moving across the stage from left to right, reminiscent of a scene from a classical Greek frieze. The crowd of figures, comprised of humans and animals, cripples and outcasts, the blind and the lame, are all weighed down by their loads of gear and baggage (both physical and emotional). They appear as anonymous shadows taking part in a united migration. As the spectator, we are not sure where they are going, but we do know that they are determined to get there. The movement of the march is complemented by and choreographed to emotional singing by Alfred Makgalemele, a local South African street musician.
In the second segment, we encounter a colossal Ubu figure with enormous hands and a large swollen belly. Wildly cracking his whip and dancing with arms raised, his grotesque performance responds to the clamour of army commands and gunfire heard in the background. Appropriated from French dramatist Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi, the character was conceived as a "satirical and grotesque expression of the way in which arbitrary power engenders madness" (Christov-Vakargiev 1998, pp. 118-119). Kentridge's Ubu, who appears frequently in his work, serves as a representation of the Truth Commission, which publicly dealt with apartheid issues on television. In the final segment, a cat staggers across the stage moving in time to the music, followed by an enormous eye which rolls from left to right, and reminds the onlooker to pay close attention and to not forget.
"Imagine an underground chamber... with a long entrance open to the daylight... In this chamber are men who have been prisoners since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads. Some way off, behind and higher up, a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners above them, runs a path in front of which there is a curtain wall, like the screen at puppet shows between the operators and the audience, above which they see only the puppets.
Imagine further that there are all sorts of men carrying gear along behind the wall, projecting above it, and including figures of men and animals made of wood and stone and all sorts of other materials, and that some of these men, as we would expect, are talking and some are not. An odd picture and an odd sort of prisoner. They are like us. For tell me, do you think our prisoners could see anything of themselves or their fellows except the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of the cave opposite them? Would they not assume the shadows that they saw were the real thing? And if the wall of their prison opposite them reflected sound, don't you think they would suppose, whenever one of the passers by on the road spoke, that the voice belonged to the shadow on the wall passing before them? They would be bound to think so." (excerpt from William Kentridge, "In Praise of Shadows," exh. cat., William Kentridge, Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, February-April 2005, p. 152).