World Cup Art

Not content with Big Apple ubiquity, William Kentridge reaches for the World (Cup) with this poster.

South Africa commissioned local artists to create works for the tournament. Not surprisingly, his poster stands out.

Also standing out, ESPN's series of subway posters for the World Cup.

The lush illustrations make a startling break from the usual poor photocollages that make up transit advertising.

Without gushing, I'll just say I really like this campaign.

Another commuter liked it even more -one poster was missing.  Product of a discerning kleptomaniac, no doubt.

The closest relative in advertising art I can think of is Paul Davis' work for Joe Papp's Public Theater.

Kentridge Mania Running Wild

Years ago, at The Ink Tank, we produced two segments for a USA Networks pilot called Kid Show.  That pilot didn't get picked up but eventually it transformed in MTV2's Wonder Showzen (which we had nothing to do with).  In the pilot, a sock puppet went around terrorizing doormen and people on the street -this was shot just before Robert Smigel's "Triumph the Insult Dog" hit big.

For all the foul language and viscous haranguing the puppet produced, no one would ever address the person operating it people always talked to the puppet.

At some point viewers forget that Bugs Bunny is a bunch of drawings, we even forget that he's a rabbit.  We're looking at an actor, a man on the run, someone we know.

arts [greater than] World Financial Center: they said themselves

In keeping with New York City's unofficial "Year of William Kentridge" several of his works play with live accompaniment at The World Financial Center.  One performance last night, one tonight.

Quickly the audience forgets that we're looking at animation (the high-fallutin' kin to cartoons), we are looking at art just the same as a  Chelsea gallery or Fifth Avenue museum.

Tribeca crowd, decent turnout despite the horrible service at Starbucks

The film setting puts Kentridge's work in a different light.  In a gallery, they run on loops.  The visitor enters in the middle, sits with the piece for a while then moves on.  Even if one sits with a piece for a full cycle,  the understanding and the relationship to the work is held in this context.

From a Felix and Soho film, an image beautiful and profound

The Felix and Soho films, in particular, take on new appeal.  In addition, the music (composed by Phillip Miller, performed by Ensemble Pi) is terrific -especially the three or four vocal pieces.

All the greats have a little Steinberg in them

The screening runs about 70 minutes and starts at 8 PM tonight.

Kentridge at the New York Public Library

There was a point early in last night's talk by William Kentridge where I feared the interviewer would just go on and on and never let the artist speak.  Would the 350 + people who turned out be subjected to his opinions and blather while the artist sat, prop-like, next to him?

I was disappointed, but not surprised, there were no familiar faces there.  Hopefully they were taking in the free Friday at MoMA.

Once given the opportunity to speak, Kentridge took over.  He was understated but insightful.

He show some of his process.  Mainly he spoke about process -his work, of course, contains the process in the results.

While seldom address animation directly, he spoke of the "grammar of performance" -things that aren't obvious in an idea but necessary rules of form.  As an example he reference a piece currently showing at the MoMA in which he filmed himself walking backwards while the film rolled backwards.  He had to figure out how to walk so that it looked correct.  In the process of exploring that gesture, he developed the content of the piece.

Some interesting points:

a cat is a line, it's led by its spine.  In drawing a cat, the gesture of the line is all you need
a dog, on the other hand, is led by its nose.  All you need is a dot, and you've got a dog

Creating has "an enormous place for mistranslation and productive misunderstanding".  We create solutions from half understanding by imagining context even if its the "wrong" one.

Regarding South Africa of his younger days, it taught him "contradiction and absurdity is not a mistake on the fringe of society, but you can create a society just on that".

He talked about "seven degrees of tension" he learned while training for an actor.  The lowest being "no energy" when every step is a break of lethargy.  The degrees scale up through neutral, alert, passionate and culminate in what he called Noh -the pure maniacal gesture of the Japanese theater form.

Character/drawing/animation doesn't start with psychology but with other determining factors -maybe one of the "seven degrees of tension", maybe a material, maybe an animal...

When working he'll often "stalk an image".

Animation is making slow very quickly.

Strategies for enabling good idea to happen.

"I once had in my hands a second edition folio of Shakespeare and I thought -this would be gorgeous paper to draw on".

Know The Nose

William Kentridge must be under a witch's spell, more likely he's a warlock himself.

In over 15 years of attending, I've never heard the well-heeled crowd at The Metropolitan Opera gasp with delight as they did at his production of Shostakovich's "The Nose".

He showed them a magic they had never seen before -from the overture's projection moving from abstract to representational through the innovative use of stage space until the final bows.



Kentridge is unquestionably the most exciting artist working in animation today. In this production, he applies simple filmic vision to the opera by creating set spaces within the vast Metropolitan stage -essentially dividing the space and directing the eye and creating de facto close ups. This is further pushed by the incorporation of projections which bring the device of scale to a medium traditionally confined to one point of view.

He's giving a talk at the New York Public Library tonight. Will report on that tomorrow.

Everything is Provisional

In the early part of this decade one of animation's greatest living artists was living in New York as Columbia University's resident artist.

That this escaped the "animation community" is evidence of the insular, self referential natures of all groups.

Fortunately, the insular, self referential "art community" has not failed to take notice of William Kentridge.  Nearly a decade after his landmark exhibition at the Guggenheim SoHo, the MoMA now has  an even more impressive, more expansive show (originally mounted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).

Here's the official exhibition site.

Many who work in animation will have gallery shows in attempt to expand their audience.  Often, this work has solid technical foundation and a level of "appeal" that animators are trained to go after.  Kentridge's work -his drawings hang in the main galleries of the show -have power.  Strong charcoals, kinetic viscera --impact.  First and foremost, Kentridge is a great artist.  Moving pictures is simply his primary means of communication.

Three of the galleries were wholly new to me -mostly work created in the last decade.  They mark a departure from what we may know as "Kentridge films".  Journey to the Moon is part homage to Georges Melies, but more a stepping stone for the artist to move into the otherworldly.  This pays off with his stirring treatment of Die Zauberflote in the next gallery which projects on 3 channels in succession.  Two of the projections are even in a sort of 3D.

It's an extraordinary exhibit.  The curators, the architects, the engineers, everyone who put it together should be proud.  Give yourself at least 3 hours to take it in, or plan on multiple trips.

The gallery for the older Soho and Felix series (which contains my favorite image of his -"Her Absence Filled The World") has this statement from the artist:

"Everything can be saved.  Everything is provisional. A prior action is rescued by that which follows. A drawing abandoned is revived by the next drawing... The smudges of erasure thicken time in the film, but they also serve as a record of the days and months spent making the film -a record of thinking in slow motion."

 Here's a bootleg clip from a theatrical performance of The Magic Flute directed by Kentridge, embedding is disabled. CLICK HERE to have your mind blown