South African draughtsman, filmmaker and sculptor.
Kentridge first studied politics and African Studies at the University
of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1973–6) before studying Fine Art at
Johannesburg Art Foundation (1976–8). Throughout this time he was
heavily involved in theatre. His interest in theatre continued
throughout his career and clearly informs the dramatic and narrative
character of his art as well as his interests in linking drawing and
film. His work as a draughtsman has been expressionistic and dominated
by pastel and charcoal, and generally the drawings are conceived as the
basis of animated films. From 1989 to 1996 Kentridge made an important
cycle of films that allegorise South Africa's political upheavals
through the lives of three characters: a greedy property developer, his
neglected wife and her poet lover. The eight-minute animation Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City after Paris
(1989), which began the series, consists of two dozen scenes developed
through minute changes to various drawings. Kentridge has always had an
ambivalent relationship to the influence of European art and culture,
focused by his own German, Jewish and Lithuanian roots. The influence of
satirists such as Daumier, Goya and Hogarth is clear, and he also often
used European classical themes as frameworks for contemporary African
subjects. Kentridge's fusion of Expressionism, art and theatre finds its
context in the interests of South Africa's Resistance Art movement of
the 1980s, and his work was largely unknown outside the country until he
established an international reputation in the early 1990s.
At the behest of Creative Time Kara E. Walker has confected: or the Marvelous Sugar Baby an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant. We are in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. An old Sugar factory, Domino Sugar Refinery, dated from 1882, a refinery that was producing sugar for nearly half of the entire Unites States, stands on the East River. The refinery stopped functioning in 2004. Nowadays it is a symbolic monument that it is about to be destroyed. Visitors entering the enormous space will be greeted by a 35.5 feet high sphinx-like figure by well-known African-American artist, Kara Walker. The sugar-coated sphinx will stand in the space for one more week. “Watching Kara Walkerʼs work come to life in the unadorned, expansive space of the Domino factory, with its molasses covered walls and natur...
Yesterday, in the evening, I had a chance to attend an interesting conference at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. Adachiara Zevi, Art historian and Architect, was introducing the work of American artist Sol LeWitt. This conversation was offered in conjunction with the exhibition "Empire State, art in New York today" . Mrs Zevi not only had the chance to be the last one to interview the artist, but she also curated a recent exhibition at Museo Madre (Napoli), "Sol LeWitt. The artist and his artists". Adachiara Zevi Art historian and architect Adachiara Zevi, who penned the first collection of essays by and on Sol LeWitt as well as producing a recent book devoted to Wall Drawings in Italy, will be introducing her audience to the work and thought of this American artist - the man behind a revolution in artistic vocabulary without which it is impossible to understand today's art - and to his unique approach to conceptual art. ...
On Thursday 26th of April, we inaugurated the first solo exhibition in London of Rome based artist Massimo Nota @ Art Lobby, curated by Alessandra Migani. The show received a warm welcome despite the persistent rain and a grey sky. I am publishing here my piece of writing on the show and images of the artist's work. Massimo Nota's exhibition poster These black sounds are the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all know of, and do not understand, but which furnishes us with whatever is sustaining in art. Black sounds: so said the celebrated Spaniard, thereby concurring with Goethe, who, in effect, defined the duende when he said, speaking of Paganini: "A mysterious power that all may feel and no philosophy can explain." Federico García Lorca , The Theory and Function of Duende Massimo Nota, originally from Rome, is a prolific artist/illustrator whose world is imbued with visions. Nota’s creative act reveals an instincti...
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