Artist Proof Studio is privileged to present the new series of five recent William Kentridge works that will be featured at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in Feb 2025. What follows is a narrative insight about the production of this innovative new series by APS Executive Director, Kim Berman.
The series of innovative etchings published by Artist Proof Studio are derived from collage drawings of paper puppet characters from William Kentridge’s new chamber opera The Great Yes, The Great No which is his latest multi-media work for the stage. (The world premier that took place in 2024 in Arles at the was commissioned by Luma Foundation).
The multi-media performance starts at the departure of the historical ship the Capitaine Paul Lemerle from Marseille, which in 1941 sailed to Martinique, breaking ties with war torn Europe and carrying refugees escaping Vichy France. In this re-imagining, actors obscure their faces with masks, becoming representations of the fictional list of real passengers on board. Included in the list are the prominent cultural and political characters such as Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon and the Nardal sisters, proponents of the anticolonialist Négritude movement. Other characters include Josephine Bonaparte, Josephine Baker, Trotsky, Diego Rivera and more. There is also a representation of the French bourgeoisie on board the ship sporting masks of coffee pots, fish, fruit birds and objects. The opera engages with the complexity of the modern condition, combining the surreal and irrational with humour and satire (see https://lessgoodidea.com/the-great-yes-the-great-no).
This series of etchings echo this crossroads between fact and fiction in its experimental processes. They also draw from the current series of nine films Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot which gives the viewers insight into William Kentridge’s making processes produced through the COVID lockdown and through to 2023. In these remarkable films, the viewer is invited to witness a collaboration with self as he draws, paints, designs, paces the floor, and thinks out loud. As Kentridge explains in an interview “And between multiple selves… That kind of splitting is something you’re aware of in the studio, …but it’s not just about the studio. It’s a human phenomenon — being yourself and stepping back from yourself.” The finished series was screened from April to Nov 2024 as part of the Venice Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation.
The Coffee Pot
With reference to his portrait of the coffee pot Kentridge is quoted as saying:
“Over the years I’ve used the same Moka pot as an emblem and sculpture, and done many drawings of it. There’s something about the architecture of the pot that is quite anthropomorphic — the skirt, narrow waist, wider shoulders, and the head of the Moka coffee pot... So it is a kind of indirect metaphorical self-portrait. … So the coffee pot is saying that the way of thinking of the self is wider than a drawing of the self.”( https://artsfuse.org/262843/film-review-william-kentridges-wondrous-self-portrait-as-a-coffee-pot/
Studio Portraits I and II
Kentridge produced two etchings entitled “Studio Portraits I and II” that encapsulate the humour and quirkiness of self- reflection, drawing on the characters from his performances that seem to dialogue with himself.
The process
The privilege of collaborating with Kentridge is his openness to play and experiment. For many years, APS has been using a process of coffee-lift drawings instead of the traditional sugar-lift as Kentridge enjoys the nuances and flow of drawing with coffee onto a copper plate, as it is comparable to the fluidity he can achieve with ink washes. The use of coffee to support the etching medium has a delightful, albeit serendipitous consistency with the coffee pot theme.
These series of images explored an innovative approach that draws from his interest in unorthodox making and links his current imagery and experimentation. Instead of using the traditional Photogravure: a photographic etching process that require sophisticated technical expertise and chemistry, or imported photo-polymer plates, APS has innovated a more haptic process of scanning and transferring collage drawings and photographs of the characters, which are exposed onto a silkscreen and printed with a coffee mixed with condensed milk onto the copper plates.
For example, in Studio Portrait 1 and 11 use the heads chosen from the pantheon of the cast of characters in The Great Yes, The Great No (including the eagle, rose, Josephine, and coffee pot). The heads are screen-printed in a thick coffee mixture onto copper plates, which are then covered in a bitumen ground, and the coffee mixture dissolved in water. After the images undergo their first etch, the copper plates are presented to Kentridge which he then completes as a wash drawing in coffee. The process is repeated and a second and third stage is etched, followed in the final stages with drypoint. The edition is printed as (EV) which indicates it is variable as the drypoint is refreshed at various points in the edition.
On the Way to the Wedding and Three Clean Men
The second two works are processed in a similar way using photographic scans of collage drawings of the characters from The Great Yes, The Great No, which are screen-printed on to a copper plate using a thickened coffee mixture which acts as the traditional sugar-lift ground. The images below show how the photo image is etched as the first layer, the drawing of the details of each character forms the second layer with the drypoint as the final layer.
The etchings express the artistic and poetic encounters with a similar humour and satire as in the performance. The ironic juxtaposition the Three clean men with their coffee pot heads represent the bourgeoisie and “On the Way to the Wedding” depicts Kentridge’s familiar procession of characters with cut-outs and other anthropomorphic instruments evoking the absurdity of power and privilege.
PRECIPITATE:
This evocative etched landscape is iconic of William Kentridge’s Joburg highveld drawings. He has been quoted as saying: “Initially I just wanted to draw landscapes, then I realised that the drawings, in themselves, evoked these larger questions.” (https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/10-artworks-william-kentridge).
Typically in his drawings, Kentridge uses red lines and circles as measuring tools to mark areas of impact and memory which disrupt a picturesque view. Dark looming diagonal lines drawn in the sky represent a pending rain-storm. The word Precipitate is written into the sky. The Oxford Dictionary’s definition of precipitate as a verb is “to make something happen suddenly or sooner than it should”.
This powerful and moody landscape etched with layers of rich tonal variations, achieved through coffee lift aquatints and drypoint lines, provoke questions of uncertainty and undetermined futures. The bright red markings are scanned pencil lines, drawn on a separate film, and screen-printed over the etching on handmade Phumani sisal paper.
A distinguishing feature of all William Kentridge collaborations with APS is that they are printed on handmade sisal, hemp or cotton paper from the Phumani Paper Mill at the University of Johannesburg. Precipitate is larger than the standard A2-size screen, which required us to fabricate a custom-made mould and deckle to produce the sisal-cotton paper that is over 1m in length. The paper is produced from raw sisal fibre.
Conclusion
William Kentridge talks about agency in the power of making. He values the process that “shows the mess before the image is made”. He also talks about the “confidence in what I don’t know…” These are profound lessons for his collaborators. Kentridge invites his viewers to find their own meanings and translation of his works and to intuit a narrative for oneself. His imagery provides a rich pantheon of lightness, humour and depth. But so much more than that, the collaboration with Artist Proof Studio is an investment in the possibility of excellence. The sales of his works produced by APS support the ability for emerging artists to study and find their artistic voices and a sustainable future.
