Behold!
human beings living in an underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all
along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that
they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their
heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there
is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which
marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. – Plato, Book Seven of the Republic, from Allegory of the Cave.
Plato waited a long time for an artist who could scratch on his wall and give his metaphor visual life. (Click images to enlarge.)
Kentridge isn’t interested in following Plato to the end of the line, aspiring to the idea of Divine Form. Leaving that hopeless ideal to minimalists, he stays in the cave with writers like Henry Miller, who wrote that “chaos is the score on which reality is written.”
In the chaos of the cave, Kentridge picks up what could be a stick blackened in a fire and draws in a coarse hand. His films are one-step up from flip books. In his deft, rude style, the hard gravel of who we are finds its advocate.
Kentridge continues at the Henry Gallery through May 3, with three videos, suites of drawings and tar-like sculptures.
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