Kentridge

source: MoMA

I've been thinking a lot about William Kentridge's work lately. I saw a Kentridge exhibition at MoMA in 2010 that stays with me. His work seems relevant to what I was talking about with a group on Sunday about how/why to make art at this time. Our talk led to ideas about how form might need to be interrogated in this cultural moment, and we brought up things like collage; living with the questions; making your own genre or existing at the intersection of genres; and situating oneself in relation to larger social structures. Kentridge uses many of these methods, as does the poet Claudia Rankine, who we brought up in our talk. I think this is a time to read, view, and promote the work of artists of color, and in addition to Rankine, I find myself turning to the poetry of Lucille Clifton and Joy Harjo, the art of Tatyana Fazlalizadeh and Teju Cole. It's also a time for white artists to continue to interrogate and help crack open the structures we're working within, which is why I'm sitting with Kentridge this morning.