William Kentridge Interview

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: You've often said that everything you do is drawing, and that you see drawing as a model for knowledge.

William Kentridge: What does it mean to say that something is a drawing--as opposed to a fundamentally different form, such as a photograph? First of all, arriving at the image is a process, not a frozen instant. Drawing for me is about fluidity. There may be a vague sense of what you are going to draw but things occur during the process that may modify, consolidate or shed doubts on what you know. So drawing is a testing of ideas; a slow-motion version of thought. It does not arrive instantly like a photograph. The uncertain and imprecise way of constructing a drawing is sometimes a model of how to construct meaning. What ends in clarity does not begin that way.

The above exerpt is the quote I read to you at the start of class on Thursday.

Think about how this quote reiterates your own experience. Do you relate to his thoughts on process? Of starting a drawing with one conception of what you think you are doing...and having that initial conception clange or dissolve as the drawing procedes?

Or do you have an entirely different experience in drawing?