As is previously documented, my experience of engagement with this artist has really impacted on my practice and I now feel that I can draw confidently and more competently. My first report on Kentridge was largely about the experience of visiting his exhibition at the Royal Academy. In this report I pull out some key points about his practice through the discussion and interviews with Stephen Clingman, who wrote the catalogue for the exhibition. I also comment briefly on his six drawing lessons that are available on you-tube.
Looking a little closer at Kentridge’s work he reveals to Clingman that he is drawn to charcoal because of the ‘indeterminacy of the point’ a statement we can take as not only methodological but also epistemological. Clingman assimilates this to Kentridge blurring lines, the charcoal by its material nature edges black into white and white into black. He compares this with the how apartheid put up walls and fences. Kentridge will erase outlines to leave their traces, to ghost the presence they once had. Clingman states further that in Kentridge’s world there is no such thing as a line that divides, only a line that transforms into something else. I applaud this sentiment. There are so many aspects of Kentridge’s work that is not only fascinating but really helps me make sense of my own art and intentions. Clingman states that Kentridge was drawn to the more experimental modes of continental Europe in his art rather than the rationalist-realist legacies of Imperial Britain. This also meant that he was .drawn to a philosophy of doubt and that it partly had to do paradoxically with trust. As he put it. Give the image the benefit of the doubt, give th whim the benefit of the doubt. In this view doubt is not the opposite of trust but it’s pre-condition, and there is something promising in it’s dual nature. Clingman draws on a suggestion by Salman Rushdie in regard to doubt modulating between belief and disbelief and continues that this is perhaps the very condition of art itself. He continues to reflect on the real and the imagined form and how art is the possible given embodied form. The work of the work of art is to be unpredictable. Kentridge has already commented about the endless possibilities with charcoal and in this regard it’s more about the processes rather than the outcome. Clingman comments further about Kentridge’s art and that its not just about the process but he goes further and comments on the art inducing process in the viewer. He suggests some of the effects such as being absorbed, responding, making sense or simply entering into a domain of contemplation or reverie and question. This further quote from Clingman is about new forms of knowledge. ‘Art speaks its own language and what it offers is a practice of freeing us from the world to which we are accustomed, suggesting there are other dimensions of seeing, other modalities of knowledge, other ways of confronting our being which are both startling and humanising. This is one of the profound inspirations of Kentridge’s work.’ These comments resonate further with my research around Campt’s views on certain artists work and the different visual impact they can have on us.
Although I haven’t yet completed all six of Kentridge’s drawing lessons some of what I’ve learned from them was really interesting. It was great to hear about his connections with Plato in Drawing 1. This was a great allegory that we learned about in Visual Culture 1. What is also fascinating is how we also learn from Kentridge the manner in which the South African land was possessed through colonialism. He takes on a real historical journey. What I also love about the course is how we learn more about history through art and artists and further how the history impacts on our lives today. It is so important to have such knowledge so we see the world more humanely.
I owe so much to Kentridge for the improved drawing practice and his similar ideologies.
Drawing 2 Interpreting the environment 