Renowned South African visual artist William Kentridge, best known for his animated films of shape-shifting charcoal drawings, has won the prestigious Princess of Asturias award, Spain’s top art honour.
What’s remarkable about his works are that they’re “as beautifully drawn as a Rembrandt, but they also come to life,” notes Iwona Blazwick, director of Whitechapel Gallery, where Kentridge was on exhibit recently.
Born in Johannesburg in 1955, Kentridge’s parents were both lawyers who specialized in defending victims of the apartheid white minority rule in South Africa. His roughly hewn animations, the “drawings in motion” he began sketching from charcoals in the 1980s, bring to life South Africa’s postcolonial history.
He is world renowned not just for his drawings, but also for his films, sculptures, performances and opera and drama productions. See more at The Tate page on William Kentridge, here.
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Great stuff, inspiring.
Kentridge has a very individualized expression of whatever he is saying, whenever he says it. I like it a lot.
For some obvious, and yet obscure reasons, I am reminded of the only art I ever saw in my grandmother’s home that was not of a Catholic religious nature.
It was silhouette art. There was no movement, but she had some fabulous stills.
So she must have had a good imagination. I always think it takes creativity to see beyond those shapes.
How lovely of you to say so! I believe so, but her life was far to hard to engage in the realization.