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WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (b. 1955) SHADOW PROCESSION 35 mm film transferred to video and DVD duration:...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:60,000.00 - 80,000.00 USD
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (b. 1955) SHADOW PROCESSION 35 mm film transferred to video and DVD duration:...
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (b. 1955) SHADOW PROCESSION 35 mm film transferred to video and DVD duration: seven mins. executed in 1999 this work is from an edition of six and is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist Estimate: - $60,000-80,000 PROVENANCE Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg ExhIBITED Paris, Galerie Marian Goodman, 1999 SHANGHAI, Shanghai Art Museum, 2000 SHANGHAI BIENNALE, November 6, 2000-January 6, 2001 (another example exhibited) WASHINGTON, DC, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution; NEW YORK, New Museum of Contemporary Art; CHICAGO, Museum of Contemporary Art; HOUSTON, Contemporary Arts Museum; LOS ANGELES, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and CAPE TOWN, South African National Gallery, WILLIAM KENTRIDGE, February 28, 2001-March 23, 2003 (another example exhibited) LITERATURE N. Benezra, S. Boris, D. Camerion, L. Cooke and A. Sitas, WILLIAM KENTRIDGE, Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art and NEW YORK: New Museum of Contemoprary Art, 2001, p. 63, figs. 6-8 and p. 137 (film stills) "The procession of the dispossessed" is a fundamental theme that emerged in William Kentridge's arch designs of the late 1980s. While the procession of figures appears in several of Kentridge's animated films, it is ultimately in Shadow Procession that this theme assumes a primary role. A film based on the techniques of shadow theater and formed in three parts, Shadow Procession begins and concludes with the choreographed movement of silhouetted figures across a seemingly torchlit, white backdrop. Constructed from cut-out black paper, these processional participants-some carrying bundles, spades and others bodies, some crippled and some walking upright-travel in succession toward an unrevealed destination. At first the tone is despondent; the displaced figures march to haunting, yet beautiful and hymnodic vocal and accordion music of Johannesburg street musician Alfred Makgalemele. Then the solemn march is interrupted by a massive, Punch-like figure, a rotund Ubu tribal leader or witch doctor that dances and gestures wildly in an extravagant ceremonial dance. Following this, the music changes, and the procession of the final segment, set to rhythmic chants and buoyant sounds of a brass band, transcends this initial sense of lamentation. The procession livens with joyful cavorting and a new parade of cut-out silhouettes of anarchic, found objects and shapes disguised as humanlike creatures: figures ride back and forth on bicycles, an old lady whizzes about on a stapler, teapots become people and a live cat crosses behind the street. Although it is uncertain whether these burdened individuals are in flight, their steadfast pace asserts a clear determination to reach their destination and essentially invokes a peculiar sense of optimism and hope. Shadow Procession has served to inspire Kentridge to a host of subsequent endeavors. Untitled (Procession Set) of 1999/2000 (Fig. 2), an installation of 26 bronze figures arranged as a procession, is a direct synthesis of the first and third parts of the film. The film also serves as the inspiration for collages that depict the processional participants of the film (Fig. 1), whose theatrical gestures and sense of motion are captured even in these stationary works.