Cover Image William Kentridge In His Studio (2022)
Drawing Inspiration: Watch the video ‘Message from William Kentridge – The 2010 Kyoto Prize’ and make notes, recording any statements or ideas that resonate for you.
“Constructively losing control…..Interested in the discoveries, rather than the knowledge…..The nature of change is essential to the process…..At the end you arrive at a clarity that was not there at the beginning…..Understanding comes from the physical activity of making drawings”
(Kentridge, 2011).
Go beyond a boundary
A process of discoveries
Immerse yourself in a labyrinth of interpretations
Creativity allows you to go beyond a boundary. Unless the work has gone through a process of discovery then all there is is conformity or reproduction. And it’s not that I think that there is no place for those things. That can be a pleasurable pursuit. But if we are exploring a deeper experience you have to immerse yourself in the subject, and find the labyrinth of interpretations.
“Happened at the edge of what I thought I was doing”
(Kentridge, 2011).
The storm after the calm
Welcome the rising uneasiness
The moment that signals to go into the depths
Do not cling to obvious
Break away from their anchors
See the small things, waiting quietly, to light the way towards something meaningful
When I am working on something there is always a moment when I have to break away and completely re-evaluate what I am doing. To reverse the saying, it’s the storm after the calm.
Initially when I start a piece, I study and plan until I have a solid idea. And for a while that is a very satisfying. But inevitably an uneasiness will appear, and that is the moment that signals to go deeper, look at what’s been created and find the essence of it.
I find that the majority of the time it is not the obvious elements I should be concentrating on, but some small part that is sitting there quietly lighting the way to something meaningful.
“Not something you chose to do or not do”
(Kentridge, 2011).
An energy more powerful than choice
The road to completion is no longer an indulgence
Something unknown will be known
When you are in the middle of a dream, you are helpless to be in that experience. You have the power to make decisions and attempt to steer it in certain directions, but the outcome is forever abstract, never really in your control.
“Studio a place of gathering who I am…..Start to feel at peace”
(Kentridge, 2011).
Comfortableness is stillness
Create a place where ideas can inhabit and take over
“Stand in for some part of you that you can’t sense for yourself”
(Kentridge, 2011).
Expressing an internal experience
Exploring the environment, ideas, materials
Reacting to events, circumstance
Communicating observation x experience
Dissecting, understanding
Finding peace
“That there are elements that other people see that enforces something in them…..Art is part of a larger ethical activity…..Not in an instrumental way, in an indirect way of being part of the constitution of people”
(Kentridge, 2011).
A connection that loops back and forth between me, the work, the subject, the person looking at the work
“Need to make an extra part of yourself…..Leave some trace of yourself…..To make something outside of themselves…..What you make shows who you are…..Understand that you take the risk that everything you do shows who you are…..Artists in a very radical sense have a huge amount missing in them…..A craving to know they exist by things they make”
(Kentridge, 2011).
No risk
No ego
Responding to a natural urge to make something
There is nothing missing
What lives outside of me, lives inside me, and comes back out again
Cover Image
Shoul, M. (2022) William Kentridge In His Studio. [Photo, edited with Hipstamatic] At: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/william-kentridge-retrospect-apartheid-even-bizarre/ (Accessed 27/07/2023).
Bibliography
InamoriFoundation English, Message from William Kentridge – THE 2010 KYOTO PRIZE (2011) YouTube [online video] At:https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP06RKjjGdU (Accessed 25/07/2023).
Friday 01.03.25