William Kentridge, A Lifetime of Enthusiasm (stills), from the installation I am not me, the horse is not mine, 2008; Collection of the artist; © 2008 William Kentridge; photo: John Hodgkiss, courtesy the artist.

The Nose 
Each film installation in the show has a unique focus. I am not me, the Horse is not mine, 2008, is eight excerpts for a production of Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2010. The artwork appears to be in the style of the Russian constructivist movement from the 1920s (the opera's world premiere was in Russia in 1930). What we see are fascinating images of a world quite different from ours. At the far end of the room we see a giant screen showing a parade of silhouette forms moving up a ramp. There are animated people constructed as articulated collages, real people dressed as workers, walking machines, the silhouette of Valdimir Tatlin's un-built tower (a proposed 400-meter high Monument to the Third International, c. 1919), and other somewhat unusual images. On the sidewalls one film shows a dancing figure that is collage constructed from printed pages. Another film shows an enormous nose with tiny legs and arms dancing. There is a film segment that shows the giant nose continuously climbing a ladder and then falling to the ground. Another film fragment refers to Nikolai Bukharin delivering testimony in 1937 before the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. Excerpts of his speech become slogans that are flashed upon the wall, and there is animated artwork and historical footage included.

The images in the room are all in black-and-white, except for rare flashes of red. One image is the silhouette of a person waving an enormous red flag. None of the images in this room are easily comprehensible or necessarily logical. What the eight fragments mean is not the point of this work. The experience of being there makes this an exciting happening, even though it creates a somewhat dark, slightly oppressive atmosphere. That feeling comes from the room being dark, the only break from the black-and -white images are splashes of the politically charged color red, and none of the actions celebrate life. For people who know something about Russian history, the work hints at the suppression of the avant-garde movements in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and '30s. It can also be seen as a reference a broader picture, Stalin's mass purges of Soviet citizens. (An exhibit Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater that covers the suppression and elimination of the Jewish theater in the USSR is at the Jewish Museum in San Francisco through Sept. 7.)

While the work may appear to be random images, the artist carefully designed it and a computer controls it. Each 6-minute cycle of this presentation is the same and it repeats itself endlessly throughout the day. The work was shot on DVCAM and HDV.

Shostakovich's opera is based on The Nose, a short story written by Nikolai Gogol in 1836. It has inspired several other works of art including the wonderful pinscreen animated film of the same name by Alexander Alexeieff and Clair Parker, 1963.

William Kentridge, Untitled [Artist and Model Drawing], 2001; Collection of Heidi L. Steiger; © 2008 William Kentridge; photo: John Hodgkiss, courtesy the artist.

Parcours d'Atelier: The Artist in the Studio
Far removed from the heavy political undertones of I am not me, the horse is not mine, is Kentridge's nine-projection installation Parcours d'Atelier: The Artist in the Studio. It is assembled from three humorous films made in 2003 that explores film techniques similar to the trick films that French pioneer George Melies made over 100 years ago. Kentridge's three films Journey to the Moon (7 min.), 7 Fragments for George Melies (3+min.) and Day for Night (6.5 min.) are full of wonderful illusions/tricks. The works were shot on 16mm and 35mm film and later transferred to video.

The installation presents a wide range of cinematic tricks along with the animation technique that made Kentridge famous. In his first widely seen work, Johnannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris, 1989, he drew a series of charcoal drawings on the same sheet of paper. He filmed each image on 16mm film and then erased sections that were moving. Then he drew the next image on the same sheet of paper. This method saves him time, as he doesn't have to redraw the non-moving sections (backgrounds, lower body parts if only the head is moving, etc.). As a result the only drawing existing from a sequence after it is completed is the final drawing. (The animator Blu from Italy used this technique to make his award-winning short Muto, 2008. He drew his animation in charcoal on walls and fences.)

From Seven Fragments there are several sequences where Kentridge stands next to his drawings and by using the magic of stop-motion photography he lets us believe that by just moving his hand over the paper he can make images appear, become animated and/or disappear. He sometimes combines his charcoal drawing technique with one that makes the images move backwards when they are projected. In one wonderful sequence of Seven Fragments he is seen catching torn fragments of a drawing and magically attaching them to the wall till a completed drawing appears. Of course there are no longer any tears in the paper. Then the image changes magically before our eyes, and eventually we see the sheet of paper void of any art. Finally the artist removes the paper from the wall and walks off with it. A few seconds later the cycle begins again.

Another delightful tribute to Melies shows the artist entering the studio and by reaching out into space. As he reaches out pieces of paper fly into his hand from out of nowhere. He carefully holds them in one hand while he conjures up more pieces of paper with the other. Then he starts catching books, both big and small. When the stack has become enormous and his arm can hold no more, he concludes his performance and the cycle begins again.