William Kentridge: Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework: (Frames – which frames suit the reading of the artwork and practice?)

Frames Kentridge uses:

• Subjective (psychological)
• Emotive – his artworks portray emotion and evoke emotion              
• Feelings – anxiety, isolation, loneliness, confusion are all experiences we all have yet are common to human condition
• Cultural
• Political – current issues
• Social issues – Felix in Exile was inspired at a subconscious level by Kentridge’s discovery of the photographs of the Sharpville Massacre.

Artwork:

World:

Audience:

• Work isn’t created for the audience.
• The interplay of audience interacting with the artworks is a shifting field and remains ambiguous. He leaves it out for interpretation.

Practice: (how, when, where, why the artist creates the work)

• Uses charcoal
• Prefers to work with black and white
• Feels that colour is a distraction as it slows him down
• Doesn’t feel he uses colour naturally or well
• Prefers to use non picturesque landscapes with black and white visuals of his practice
• He uses his own references and resources
• Some of his animations were inspired by dreams he had
• He is always inspired in his work “I have always wanted too…”
• He feels responsible for his characters particularly ‘Soho’ as he got older. He also sees himself in his characters, “I feel that I should have a character that is not me. I wouldn’t feel so responsible for them.
• Instead keeping a written journal/diary of his travels, he purchases books and draws in them. The places he visits help to inform his ideas in art making. When he is somewhere, he thinks of his ideas then and there and draws them later.
• He needs to make sure that his characters go places that he would want to draw.
• Kentridge compares writing a novel and making a film. Each scene is like a chapter in a novel – visual novel or his artworks. His artworks are visual narratives.
• Still like to create as in creating he leaves a concrete trace in one way or another.
• In his films we can see the merging of memories and drawings.