Kertridge's story is a natural way to find and develop yourself as a great artist. Having received an art education, the artist tried himself both as an actor and as a director, but, in his words, he failed. Then it seemed to him that everything was in vain, but now we see a different result. Without the experience of acting, the artist could not feel the main character in the cinema frame the way he feels and shows him in his works. In addition, without the experience of working with the camera and building shots, Kertridge may not have come up with the idea that became his calling card.
The artist uses charcoal for a fast and moving drawing. He erases and changes the drawing as people change position when they move. This is the thought process of the artist expressed in physical form. Add a stroke here, erase here, and another stroke here - and now the main character is doing something else. Each of these strokes is our life, decision-making, construction of reality. Each of them is a big responsibility. Strokes, like our actions, can kill or do good.
https://youtu.be/5_UphwAfjhk William Kentridge: transformation with animation
An artist can start work with a clear understanding of just a one main character. By changing the lines of behavior of this hero step by step, the artist, as it were, follows and allows the development of the history inherent in this hero and the circumstances surrounding him. The artist photographs every new stroke. Therefore, in this physical movement between the camera and the drawing, the creation of reality is personified.
In the method of erasing a drawing and creating a new one on the same place, we see a metaphor for our memory process. This is such a multi-layered drawing, in which each layer is like a new memory.
With this method of work, William Kentridge analyses the problem of particular interest to him - apartheid in South Africa.
«History of the Main Complaint is the sixth film in the series and is based on twenty-one drawings. It was made shortly after the establishment in South Africa of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was set up to conduct a series of public hearings into abuses of human rights perpetrated during the apartheid era. The hearings, in which individuals told their stories of personal suffering, were held in order to make reparation for abuse and in the hope of creating reconciliation between peoples. The underlying theme of this film is a (self) recognition of white responsibility. This is played out through a 'medical' investigation into the body of Soho Eckstein, the white property-developing magnate and greedy-capitalist protagonist of most of the preceding films, which provides the starting point for a revelation of conscience.» (TATE William Kentridge, History of the Main Complaint 1996 [online] At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kentridge-history-of-the-main-complaint-t07480 (Accessed 10.08.2023)
In this work, the artist uses his established method of work to explore self-responsibility for apartheid in Africa from 1948 to 1994.
Analysing the pain shown through a detailed drawing, the artist experiences so to say the same pain. Such a rethinking and return to the past is like a method of critical thinking - first one need to recreate the history, then analyse who, why, what reaction came, and the third is evaluation (meaning on the event, learning from it...). Through Kertridge's animation, we see all of these processes presented in his erased lines and narrative plot.
The first time I saw Kertridge's work, I thought it was Kara Walker. The main association arose for me because of the carved black figures on a white background. The primitive association of a black figure with Afro-American people. At the same time, of course, the Walker technique is fundamentally different from the Kertridge.
The black woman artist began to carve her silhouettes out of paper because of the rejection of painting and drawing standards. Her awkward understanding of herself did not fit into popular abstract painting. (https://youtu.be/jiDUo24R7lI) Therefore, paper cutting can be presented here as a kind of her inner personality.
“Since the 1990s, her silhouetted wall works, drawings, and videos have treaded an uncomfortable line between beauty and violence, attraction and repulsion, and past and present, and she is recognized equally for her skillful draftsmanship and her trenchant storytelling.” (Sprueth Magers [online] At: https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/kara-walker-berlin/ (Accessed 05.08.2023)
Further in her works, Walker chooses a plot and builds a narrative, and we also see a description of the historical situation, asking questions through the alignment of figures in a certain position, and then through the dreary paper cutting comes the last point of a critical analysis of the rethinking of this event.
Comparing my work process to date, I can probably single out only the third stage now. I have vague ideas about situations and events that disturb me. I consciously do not build a narrative from figures. My works are abstract because I want to communicate with the viewer on an emotional and spiritual level.
Movement, 2023, recycled newspapers, acrylic, water-based fixatives, plaster on plywood and wood, 73 x 132 x 11 cm.
At home, 2023, recycled wood, metal, concrete, burlap, copper-coated paper, cardboard, newspapers; acrylic paint, sand, screws, nails, 63 x 72 x 66 cm.
My storytelling comes through in my sculptures. And the colour fields as an emotional part complements them. Although for me the colour is the beginning. As for Kentridge the hero begins the artwork, so for me it is an event for which I have a colour in my body.
Yuri Norstein
Kentridge's work reminded me of the Russian director and animator Yuri Norstein. Here the association arose between the drawn cartoons of the authors. Norstein in his works speaks about eternal themes - loneliness, fear, love, friendship and so on, in the language of cartoons. Serious topics, therefore, return adults to the world of childhood. And already through this childish vision, the artist's works tell stories that are eternally important for everyone.
Norstein uses and modifies the cutout method of work (called flat marionettes at the time), which appeared in Russian animation in the 1920s. In addition, he experiments a lot with the imposition of one image on another, thereby he achieves layering in the construction of the frame. Norstein uses images of drawings and paintings by famous artists. For example, the bull in "The Tale of Tales" is a drawing by Picasso and work with light and shadow taken from the works of Rembrandt, in "25th - the first day" the works of Petrov-Vodkin, Marc Chagall and others were used, in the work "The Heron and the Crane" Norshtein used the motifs of the works of paintings by Katsushika Hokusai.
Hedgehog in the Fog is a 1975 Soviet animated film directed by Yuri Norstein and produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. (Wikipedia, Hedgehog in the Fog [online] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_in_the_Fog (Accessed 05.08.2023)
Since Yuriy Norstein is more of a cinematographer and cartoonist, unlike the two previous artists, he focuses on one cartoon as one film. Often this author is compared with Tarkovsky. A special relationship to time and image poetry in the film is their unifying style. The frames of the film are often slow and special attention is paid to insignificant significant details - the movement of a candle fire, a leaf in the wind, a dew drop ... In this representation of things, I see a distinctive feature of Russian melancholia, characteristic of this culture.
Bibliography and references
1. GARAGE, Lecture by Irina Kulik "William Kentridge - Michal Rovner". [online] At: https://youtu.be/cF2_dZlQJFg (Accessed 11.08.2023)
2. What are “The Hedgehog in the Fog” and “The Tale of Tales” by Yuri Norshtein really about? Kinopoisk [online] At: https://youtu.be/jjBHqYqWM70 (Accessed 13.08.2023)
3. Yuri Norstein Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Norstein (Accessed 13.08.2023)
4. Tale of Tales (1979 film) Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Tales_(1979_film) (Accessed 13.08.2023)
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