William Kentridge: Five Themes | Jeu de Paume, Paris

 Dessin pour "II Sole 24 Ore [World Walking]"

[Le Soleil 24 heures (Le Monde en marche)]" 2007, William Kentridge

Fusain, gouache, pastel et crayon de couleur sur papier, 213.5 x 150 cm

Journey to the Moon, 2003

35mm and 16mm film transferred to video (black and white, sound) 7:10 min

 William Kentridge, Five Themes

29 June 2010 until 05 September 2010

Featuring about 40 works in a range of media, including animated films, drawings, prints, theater models, sculptures, and books, "William Kentridge: Five Themes" brings viewers up to date on the artist’s work over the past decade, exploring how his subject matter has evolved from the specific context of South Africa to more universal stories. In recent years, Kentridge has dramatically expanded both the scope of his projects (such as recent full-scale opera productions) and their thematic concerns, which now include his own studio practice, colonialism in Namibia and Ethiopia, and the cultural history of postrevolutionary Russia. His newer work is based on an intensive exploration of themes connected to his own life experience, as well as the political and social issues that most concern him.

South African artist William Kentridge (born 1955) first achieved international recognition in the 1990s with a series of what he called “drawings for projection”: short animated films based on everyday life under apartheid. Since then, Kentridge has widened his thematic range, expanding beyond his immediate environment to examine other political conflicts. His oeuvre charts a universal history of war and revolution, evoking the complexities and tensions of postcolonial memory and imaging the residual traces of devastating policies and regimes.

Dryden Goodwin

These larger scale photographs are the first in an on-going series sharing the method of tracing the face and head with a compass with the smaller scale Capture (2001) series. The Cradle series presents these individuals in life-size proportions.

The scale of the photographs offers the viewer the opportunity to examine at close quarters the intricacies of the scratched line. In each of these works the figures are caught at a moment of seeming introspection and focused thought; the poignancy of these moments counterbalances the mundane nature of the urban context they are in. The gesture of mapping their faces with further lines could be construed as an act of violence yet has a paradoxical tenderness and intimacy as the web of lines forms a cradle to hold their particular features and expressions. These markings are an attempt to elevate the individuals above the street in which they have been spied.

Dryden Goodwin