Lamont Gallery Features Dissolving Art
William Kentridge’s linocut prints adorn the Lamont Gallery walls as students and faculty admire the newly instated exhibition, Universal Archive. Kentridge’s belief that “there is a desperation in all certainty” manifests itself in his choice of medium for his pieces: each printed image will eventually dissolve.
Kentridge and his assistants carefully carved sketches, ranging from trees to coffee pots, onto the linoleum plates which were originally a collection of small ink drawings. These abstract subject matters reflect Kentridge’s world view. “The category of political uncertainty, philosophical uncertainty, uncertainty of images, is much closer to how the world is,” he said.
Another way Kentridge adds complexity to his works is by creating illusions. According to Weston LaFountain, the Interim Curator of the Lamont Gallery, Kentridge deceives viewers by cutting a watercolor-like sketch onto a rigid block. “There are multiple layers of meaning of how the prints were made,” LaFountain said. “His method ties into his own philosophy of life in general and how there is very little certainty in this world and that we live in a world of process and not hard fact.”
Lamont Gallery proctor and upper Elizabeth Kostina praised the way Kentridge shows the evolution of an object. “He will take a drawing of an ordinary object, like a tea kettle that is relatively realistic,” she said. “Then, he will slowly distort the image over several prints. Once you get to the final image, you wouldn’t be able to recognize [that] this was a tea kettle at all.”
Many of Kentridge’s revolutionary ideas are rooted in his earlier life in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he witnessed the dissolution of South Africa’s 20th-century system of institutional racial segregation known as apartheid. His work largely draws on the desolate industrial environment of post-apartheid South Africa, seeking to express ideas across multiple disciplines, including drawing, film and theatre.
LaFountain elaborated on the interdisciplinary nature of Kentridge’s art. “[Kentridge] is this profound philosophical thinker that is able to work across many fields and combine them successfully,” he said. “The 75 prints we have are only the tip of the tip of the iceberg in terms of the work that he has produced.”
Another medium Kentridge explores is stop motion film, which can be incredibly laborious. “He does a charcoal drawing, takes a pictures of it and strings many of these drawings together into a moving image,” he said. “If you put that into context, one second of animation is 24 frames per second. Some of his videos are 50 minutes long.” The exhibition itself displays clips of the stop motion media that Kentridge has created.
As an addition to the exhibition, LaFountain and the gallery proctors have set up a whiteboard and video camera so students can mimic Kentridge’s passion for stop motion film. “[LaFountain, myself and the other proctors] are going to try and get the people who come to the exhibit to participate in that sense,” she said.
Kostina believes the difficult nature of stop motion will advance students’ understanding of the exhibit. “I think a lot of people don’t understand how difficult filming is,” she said. “The process of stop motion is both gratifying and frustrating; I want people to see that and have a better understanding of what his art is.”
Students who attended the gallery opening were extremely impressed by the exhibition. “My initial perception was that it seemed kind of mysterious and nearly reminded me of calligraphy,” she said. “I thought it was really beautiful for some inexplicable reason.”
Another visitor, lower Sarah Huang, described that her favorite part of the exhibition was how one print could represent two or more subjects. “When looking at the exhibition, I realized that a print that we had thought was a bird could also be interpreted as a forest with a moon above,” she said. “The different understandings possible behind the prints reminded me of how much care the artist must have put into each print.”
Music Instructor Jon Sakata is leading a discussion about the exhibition with other members of the faculty. The exhibition resonates with him because of the layers of meanings in each piece. “All to say, Kentridge—known for his amazing animations—is an artist who most richly activates an animation of mind, imagination, critically and cunningly vital thought like no other,” Mr. Sakata said.
When Kentridge discusses his philosophy on art, he takes the time to evaluate accepted notions and turn them upside down. “The absurd, with its rupture of rationality—of conventional ways of seeing the world—is in fact an accurate and a productive way of understanding the world,” he said.
The exhibit will be on display in Lamont Gallery until Mar. 9.