William Kentridge
Prominent South African artist mounts an animated procession both joyful and macabre at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
William Kentridge, "More Sweetly Play the Dance," 2015
eight-channel HD video installation with four megaphones and sound, 15 min., installation view at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, 2019 (collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; photo by Charles Cousins, Art Gallery of Alberta)
Anyone who has volunteered to go door knocking for a political party knows how trying it is to be confronted with hostility or indifference. But for most Canadians that’s likely the extent of our anxiety. In the world where William Kentridge grew up, speaking out publicly could lead to beatings and torture. His version of politics, as he once told the Guardian, is “the police arresting you and putting electrodes on your testicles.”
Kentridge, justifiably described as the Picasso of South Africa, grew up during the worst atrocities of apartheid. His parents were prominent lawyers who defended political activists, including Nelson Mandela. Discussions about human rights were as much a part of family mealtimes as toast and coffee.
To this day, Kentridge’s prodigious artistic output – film, animation, sculpture, installation, murals, printmaking, tapestry, drawing and stage design – is permeated with the political ferment of Johannesburg. The city and its history are so much the lifeblood of his art that, unlike many of his contemporaries, he has never left.
That South Africa continues to be Kentridge’s muse will be clear to anyone lucky enough to see Procession, on view until Sept. 15 at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton.
The rhythmic beat of the African Immanuel Essemblies Brass Band reverberates down the stairs leading to the exhibition. It envelops as you move through the doors into the multimedia video installation, More Sweetly Play the Dance, the largest work in a show that also includes Procession, a series of 26 bronze sculptures set out on a long table.
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William Kentridge, "Procession" (detail), 1999-2000
bronze sculptures on wooden table with iron trestles, installation at Art Gallery of Alberta, 2019 (collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; photo by Charles Cousins, Art Gallery of Alberta)
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William Kentridge, "Procession," 1999-2000
bronze sculptures on wooden table with iron trestles, installation at Art Gallery of Alberta, 2019 (collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; photo by Charles Cousins, Art Gallery of Alberta)
The paradoxes that permeate Kentridge’s art are immediately apparent: the music induces you to dance while the eight-channel video projection – set out in a 100-foot long frieze – has a very different mood. Stop-motion animated charcoal drawings of a ravaged industrial landscape form the backdrop. Against this dystopian setting clustered groups of life-size figures move past in a bizarre and disturbing procession.
Dancers twirl to the beat of the band, followed by Ebola workers in protective clothing who drag the dead. There are slow-striding humanoid hedge clippers and dancing skeletons. A politician proclaims something from a podium while secretaries float past busily typing.
William Kentridge, "More Sweetly Play the Dance," 2015
eight-channel HD video installation with four megaphones and sound, 15 min., installation view at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, 2019 (collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; photo by Charles Cousins, Art Gallery of Alberta)
The procession ends as it began, in a brief but poignant silence. Is it a march, a funeral or a celebration? Kentridge offers no facile answers. Viewers are left to assemble their own meaning from the shards. A line from Shakespeare’s MacBeth comes to my mind: “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”
But there is no cathartic ending to this performance – the video loops endlessly, beginning anew every 15 minutes. The players, like generations of humanity, repeatedly enter the stage. Cycles of history continue with uprisings, deaths and genocides, but also exuberance and celebrations that help people endure even the worst atrocities. The procession, with us as actors, goes on. ■
William Kentridge: Procession is on view at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton from June 15 to Sept. 15, 2019.
Art Gallery of Alberta
2 Winston Churchill Square, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 2C1
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