The show consisted of drawings, books, tapestries, installations and animations and was mesmerising, I missed the get together discussion at the end because I was so engrossed in the films. The first room was the piece that I found most interesting. A mixture of a mechanical bellows that silently beat out time throughout the projection and a series of films which played out around the walls. I particularly liked the procession shadow figures which went from carnival mode to refugees and the soft feint lines used to define the different figures when they overlapped.. Thought provoking and topical. Kentridge packed a lot in to this piece and it would have been good to watch it through more than once as I'm sure that there were many details that I missed. It is said that his works political and I felt a tension in the pieces. A sense of unquiet and brooding storm. I suspect that there is a level of understanding of his works that can only be reached with a familiarity with politics, particularly South African politics, but without that knowledge it is possible to feel his frustration with an unequal regime and that is not confined to South Africa.
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| Sketchbook drawings from the day |
He is clearly fascinated with how things appear when film is played backwards, maybe wishing to undo past actions or events. He also uses very simple techniques to get his message across, film in the style of flip books and animations made by erasing and redrawing. His drawings are bold, gestural, and lively. There was lots to think about in the way of techniques to convey a message.
The erased charcoal animations were the most interesting technique and the project from the last section "An emotional response" wasn't very good. Referencing Kentridges technique I made a very short and rather poor quality video on my phone.
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