William Kentridge.

New Museum of Contemporary Art New York, New York June 2-September 16, 2001

Only thirteen years ago, William Kentridge had difficulty persuading New York art galleries to look at slides of his work. Today he is perhaps the most internationally celebrated South African artist, and in the last few years has received considerable exposure and acclaim in the United States.

Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, Kentridge trained in the fine arts at the University of the Witwatersrand while earning a degree in politics and African studies. He went on to study mime and theater for two years at L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris and briefly worked in the film industry. This background, combined with the influence of a politically active family, a desire to work in media not known for major statements, and a personal sensitivity to social injustice in South Africa, sheds light on Kentridge's works on paper, films, and theatrical collaborations.

Several years ago Neal Benezra, then Deputy Director and Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, Staci Boris, Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Dan Cameron, Senior Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, separately approached Kentridge about doing a major exhibition in the United States. The artist suggested that the three work collaboratively. The result is an impressive retrospective survey, presently touring major American museums, that includes eleven animated films, recordings of theater productions, two film installations, line drawings, and more than seventy graphic works, all of them highly complex, nuanced, and self-referential.

I first saw this exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution (February 28-May 13, 2001), and then several times at the New Museum. The New York adaptation began with Shadow Procession (1999), a seven-minute film of paper cut-out figures marching to music by the Johannesburg street musician Alfred Makgalemele. Casting shadows across the highly reflective floor that one had to cross to enter the exhibition, the film created a liminal space between the street entry and the galleries. The procession appeared to consist of refugees or displaced workers and composite figures of trees and humans. Ubu, a character in many of Kentridge's works, made a brief appearance. These figures marched along, carrying their belongings to a new place.

Turning the corner into a small room, the visitor encountered examples of Kentridge's earlier works on paper: eight etchings from the Hogarth in Johannesburg series (1986-87) and three other graphic works. The next space included several series of drawings from Kentridge's first eight films, all of which screened continuously in one large room in the back of the gallery.

One of these films, History of the Main Complaint (1996), made its international debut at Documenta X in 1997. It shows Soho Eckstein lying comatose in a hospital bed. Soho is one of Kentridge's recurring characters, a greedy capitalist who built his empire during the apartheid era. In the film Soho has nightmares in which he witnesses a man being beaten in the street and a figure stepping in front of his moving car. Soho's imagining himself to be the driver of the car can be read as an admission of his guilt for participating in the capitalistic gains of apartheid. Yet, when Soho looks in his rearview mirror, the viewer sees the eyes of his melancholic alter ego, Felix Teitlebaum, who also has a recurring role in Kentridge's films. Felix is usually shown naked, sitting in the middle of an open field, "listening to the world" through huge megaphones and headphones. As the reflective artist, he is the counterpart of the active, all-consuming Soho.

Kentridge has stated that he himself is the model for Felix, and therefore feels a sense of responsibility for that character's actions. The artist has acknowledged on many occasions that Soho Eckstein descends, in part, from George Grosz's portrayals based on the German Weimar bourgeoisie. The business suits seen in Max Beckman's drawings greatly influenced his conceptualization of this character as well. After Kentridge developed Soho Eckstein, he recognized Soho's similarity to a photograph of his own paternal grandfather, and by extension, an older version of himself. This film suggests that Soho's dream is a reflection of the character's hidden fears and desires--a dream that other whites (including Kentridge himself) must also share.

Kentridge uses neither storyboards nor scripts for his films, preferring to work on impulse and whim. Stereoscope (1999), which also screened in this space, includes an eclectic collection of images and ideas: trams, the notion of the early-twentieth-century avant-garde Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky that electromagnetic charges generated by petting black cats can electrify a city, archival photos of the Johannesburg cityscape, and found images of a switchboard. Kentridge employs stereoscopic technology, using side-by-side images that one looks at with each eye but reads as one image, to bridge gaps between what we see and what we know. Here he fuses the physical characteristics of Soho Eckstein (forever in his pin-striped suit) with the pensive, withdrawn characteristics of Felix Teitlebaum (who again appears naked, in a contemplative state). Borrowing characteristics of Mayakovsky's poet in The Tragedy, Soho is the "scapegoat/martyr who assumes the burden of the world's suffering" (Lynne Cooke, William Kentridge [exhibition catalogue], p. 52). Set to music composed by Philip Miller, Stereoscope raises issues of accountability, signaled in part by the appearance of the words "give" and "forgive" at the end of the film.

Kentridge's films are composed of numerous charcoal drawings that have been modified, erased, and reworked into frames for projection. One strength of this installation was the opportunity it offered to view the drawings and then watch them evolve through various stages into film; it created an organic bond between the two media. Visitors could become familiar with Kentridge's process and cast of characters while gaining insight into his sure sense of line and selective use of color.

After watching over sixty minutes of film, one then had to double back through the exhibition in order to see new work. Toward the front was an intimate side gallery that contained the installation Medicine Chest (2000). Here, images were projected through the rear panel of a medicine chest with two glass shelves and a glass door. In this six-minute film, images morph into new forms, accompanied by text. One saw Kentridge's portrait, birds, torsos and chests, and assorted bottles and containers usually found in a medicine chest. This work was accompanied by a soundtrack at the Hirshhorn but showed mute in New York City because of the artist's desire to avoid audio bleeds from other spaces.

Three 1988 silkscreen prints on paper were mounted along the stairs to the New Museum's mezzanine level. Titled Art in a State of Grace, Art in a State of Hope, and Art in a State of Siege, these prints were made as a critique of Johannesburg's centennial celebrations. In a lecture at the museum, Kentridge stated that they are the most politically motivated works in the show, so it is curious that they were shown outside the primary exhibition spaces.

Film recordings of the theater productions Faustus in Africa! (1995), Ubu and the Truth Commission (1997), and the Monteverdi opera II Ritorno d'Ulisse (1998) played on a single flat-screen monitor in an open walkway between exhibition areas. I had to wonder about the placement. Although all institutions must contend with spatial constraints, these works, which highlight collaborations between Kentridge's drawings and the talented Handspring Puppet Company, appeared to be subordinated to the challenging space.

The top floor of the New Museum installation housed three separate viewing areas for the film Ulisse: ECHO scan slide bottle (1998), the projection installation Sleeping on Glass (1999), and the film Ubu Tells the Truth (1997), Drawings and prints lined the walls between these spaces, allowed to stand on their own. One highlight was a pair of charcoal drawings that were joined in the middle by a site-specific drawing made by Kentridge for this venue.

The strong connection between the drawings and prints that had been so effectively communicated at the Hirshhorn seemed lost in the New Museum adaptation, but Cameron's installation allowed Kentridge's strength in each n-tedium to shine through. In fact, the artist stated in a talk at the New Museum that initially he had felt that the drawings were the art and should be kept separate from the films. While it is a lot to ask a museum visitor to watch eight films in one sitting, those who did so walked away with an ability to connect characters, themes, and recurring icons, both the obvious and the esoteric.

Notably absent from the exhibition were the extended label copy and timelines that traditionally provide contextual information and a historical anchor. Kentridge's dense, complicated, and multireferenced work would have required either an extremely long or an oversimplified wall text. The curators instead allowed visitors to experience themes embedded in the work: loyalty and loneliness, action and introspection, corrupt power structures, and larger human issues--race relations, love, personal accountability--that seem rooted and local in almost every context. Furthermore, avoiding a directed narrative allowed viewers to find their own truths and connections with the artworks.

Those looking to further satisfy their intellectual and visual curiosity about Kentridge's work can visit an online forum set up to foster dialogues on discussion topics (www.newmuseum.org) and purchase the exhibition catalogue or David Krut's CD-ROM, both titled William Kentridge, or the video William Kentridge: Drawing the Passing. All are valuable resources. Another opportunity for information was made available at the New Museum in a public conversation between Cameron and Kentridge on June 2, 2001, in which the artist discussed artistic sources. Carefully evading several audience members' attempts to categorize his work as reflecting his Jewish heritage or white guilt in post-apartheid South Africa, he articulated his intention to address the complexities surrounding the weight of Europe in Africa.

After leaving the New Museum, the exhibition traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (October 20, 2001-January 20, 2002), and the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (March 1-May 5, 2002). It will be installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (July 21-October 6, 2002) and, finally, at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town (December 7, 2002-March 23, 2003).

The catalogue William Kentridge (160 pp., 348 color illustrations; $45 softcover) contains an interview by Dan Cameron and essays by Neal Benezra, Staci Boris, Lynne Cooke, and Art Sitas, Produced by the Museum for Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, it is available from the New Museum of Contemporary Art and other host museums.

LAURIE ANN FARRELL, associate curator at the Museum for African Art, New York, received her M.A. in art history from the University of Arizona. While working on current exhibitions, she is also curating an exhibition on contemporary African art for 2003.