William Kentridge's MoMA Retrospective Reexamines His Political Art and Animation Legacy

A retrospective at MoMA provides an opportunity to reassess William Kentridge's work, questioning the easy consensus around his political credentials. Kentridge's films, such as Mine (1991), Monument (1990), and Shadow Procession (1999), critique apartheid and its aftermath through blunt caricature. His recurring protagonists Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitelbaum, with Ashkenazic surnames, implicate Jewish industrialists in South Africa's racist systems. The exhibition juxtaposes masterful prints and self-contained drawings with cruder drawings for film, sparking debate about his draftsmanship. Kentridge's technique involves continuous drawing and erasure, reclaiming animation from technical perfectionism. His work draws from an expressionist tradition including Michelangelo, Goya, Daumier, Picasso, Kollwitz, Grosz, Guston, and Giacometti. Collaborators like editors Angus Gibson and Catherine Meyburg and sound designer William Schübel contribute to his films' dramatic intensity. Kentridge's 7 Fragments for George Méliès (2003) revisits early cinematic magic. The exhibition includes a concurrent display of Picasso's sequential lithograph of a bull at MoMA. Kentridge's double billing at MoMA and the Met marks his rise from outsider to center stage.