William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1955. His animated films, or 'drawings for projection', explore personal and social conflicts in the context of both apartheid and post-apartheid landscapes, using mainly pastel and charcoal drawings on paper, which he changes and sets in motion by rubbing out and drawing over things. Originally a fine art painter, draughtsman and engraver, Kentridge turned his attention to animation in the late 1980s through his increasing interest in time; its passing, the traces it leaves, the memory that events, beings and objects leave when we close our eyes on the past. What technique besides frame-by-frame animation could better render an account of this phenomenon?
'All of my work is about Johannesburg in one form or another.thematically I suppose I work with what's in the air, which is to say a mixture of personal questions and the broader social questions. Questions this year, questions last year, responsibility, retribution, recrimination, before issues of what histories are hidden in the landscape. Often they're fairly broad questions but generally they arrive through quite a personal or particular starting point.' Interview with William Kentridge
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