William Kentridge-Weighing and Wanting

Born to a white , South African family in 1955 , William Kentridge 's education included studies in drawing and theater as a teenager , and later , philosophy and politics in college . These aspects of the artist 's background come together in his films , resulting in dramatic and disturbing commentaries on South Africa 's tragic history of apartheid The legacy of apartheid 's race-based oppression is revealed in surreal dream-like ways to a cast of fictional characters that represent oppressors , witnesses and victims . One such fictional character is Soho Eckstein where the film Weighing . and

Wanting revolves

Weighing . and Wanting done in 1997 , is the the seventh in the Soho Eckstein series

Based on vigorous black-and-white charcoal drawings frequently enhanced by strokes of red or blue pastel , this short animation chronicle the experiences of Soho Eckstein , the pin-stripe-suited factory owner whose guilt-laden memory characterizes one aspect of contemporary South Africa and his alter ego , Felix Teitlebaum , a thoughtful artist who competes for the attentions of Soho 's wife . The characters navigate a hypnotic vortex of civil strife , social inequity , and industrial pillage . Images of tenderness alternate with violence and fantasy as Soho and Felix explore the

interrelation of identity , memory , guilt , and forgiveness against the backdrop of a decimated landscape . Each film , which varies in length from three to eight minutes , vividly illustrates

Kentridge 's complex drawing process . The artist develops each sequence by photographing hundreds of modifications , additions , and erasures into a singular visual experience . Throughout the exhibition , substantive groupings of Kentridge 's drawings for projection ' are presented with corresponding films

In making his films , Kentridge creates an entire animation sequence from a single drawing , which he augments bit by bit , working without script or storyboard . His narratives and imagery - at once melancholy graceful , and open-ended - emerge through this unusual , labor-intensive working process . He adds one mark , erases another , walks over to a camera a few feet away and shoots a couple of frames . Making the short trip back from camera to drawing , he says , he hopes that some idea will emerge to suggest what the next drawing or the next sequence should be ' He then repeats the process over and over , so that each narrative instant bears the eloquent traces of all that has come before . In the end , he is left with one short film and a very small stack of drawings one for each scene in the film

On his drawings , Kentridge says "The drawings don 't start with 'a beautiful mark . It has to be a mark of something out there in the world It doesn 't have to be an accurate drawing , but it has to stand for an observation , not something that is abstract , like an emotion " Kentridge also infuses his drawing with life . He gives them breath through animation . His short films are labor intensive to a degree that defies our climate of ready-made works of art in an age of digital reproduction

Kentridge 's installations involve video projections of his animated films , and the...