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| William Kentridge |
It almost doesn't matter that the car's not starting because this week I'm chicken-sitting (say THAT fast) for a great friend who's taught me almost all I know about visual artists. She introduced me to the work of William Kentridge and we went to see his work together at the Royal Academy recently.
It was Jane Fordham who told me, when I was moaning about artists using words, that everything was material. I've never forgotten that. In fact it informs a chapter in On Poetry. I felt artists were appropriating words and invading poets' territory. Jane shrugged and explained. Whenever I wonder about what appropriation means I think of this issue of words.
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| William Kentridge |
Kentridge's work is SO honest, so of the moment, witty, humble and political. I crave the politics in it while morality in the UK is dispatched left, right, centre. His work brings me to tears, challenges me and all this among the noise of what is and isn't art, what is and isn't acceptable, what is and isn't the right way to live. Kentridge doesn't appear to have space for doubt, or if he does, he uses that as material too.
And so this week, in Jane's house, I am going over to that artist mindset, of words as material, at least to give myself proper time to understand what it means. There's a library of art books, including Kentridge. And another thing, the way Kentridge uses words reminds me of Neruda's questions. He bends reality.
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