The William Kentridge exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago does not immediately announce itself as what it is. After walking up the circular stairs, charcoal drawings emerge as the focus depicting an overweight man. He is shown in a hospital bed and surrounded by doctors; other charcoal drawings show x-rays and ultrasounds that curiously include desk objects such as a type-writer and a stamp. As the drawings line the wall they lead in a counterclockwise direction to the drawing of a street going off into the distance with a billboard and what resembles a human body.
It is the style of Kentridge to use a subject, specifically this overweight man named Soho Eckstein, in a short series of frames to represent a more general statement on South African apartheid society1. Though there is no doubt what Kentridge’s purpose is from reading his short background, the charcoal drawings do not openly speak toward that purpose. Rather they directly present a character in a situation as a response. Only in the end do they lead to an understanding of the political statement that Kentridge wishes to make. The starting point is not analysis; there may be some vision or depiction of society but that’s not where the starting point is2.
In the exhibition, the starting point seems to be charcoal drawings with small hints of pastel colors of red or blue. From the medium itself, the viewer gathers some primitive, natural feeling from the dark charcoal strewn in big, broad lines. There’s a roughness to the outline of objects which, coupled with the general monochromatic theme, instills a gloom and dread that can be associated with Kentridge’s background in apartheid-ridden South Africa.
The drawings show a hospitalized man, Soho Eckstein, and many doctors huddled over him. The amount of doctors examining Soho suggests there is something difficult or peculiar with his condition. From the drawings of his x-rays and ultrasounds, littered with desk objects, that is a fair assertion. Further in the progressive line of drawings, there is a lonely street. On this street, the figure of a human body captures attention and arouses interest, though the exact event being depicted is unclear. In the last drawing, Soho is sitting at his desk on which are those objects seen in his medical exams. It is difficult to make any connection between those objects in their different realms. From the images displayed in this progression, it seems Soho has been hospitalized because of some accident on this lonely street. But somehow he returns to perfect health behind his desk with all of his desk supplies in all the right places.
However, these charcoal drawings, presented in the open room coming off the stairs, are not the starting point of Kentridge’s work in The History of the Main Complaint at all. They provide a storyboard for the actual work that Kentridge does which is presented in an initially unseen room. Playing inside is a short animated film created with twenty-one charcoal drawings that were erased and redrawn to create motion3. Thus the presented drawings in the first, open room are actually a final work rather than a starting point, and they display this with erasure marks and redrawn lines that reveal a passage of time.
With the fluid passage of time presented in the film, a more concrete storyline emerges. Unseen in just the drawings themselves are other characters scattered throughout the short series of events, particularly through a windshield view of a street. The film also shows a hospitalized Soho. From flashbacks to dark figures being beaten in the street, it is clear that the damage seen on Soho’s medical exams is reflective of damage done to those figures. Finally, as a figure in the road smashes into the windshield, Soho awakens from the coma now knowing what put him into it in the first place. In the end Soho returns to his desk with all the objects back in their proper places. There is an ambiguity as to what revelation or lack thereof Soho must have gone through to return to his position of health and power.
After the movie molds together a clear story, seeing the charcoal drawings separately holds more meaning. They begin to represent Kentridge’s statement on South African society in a more detectable way. The past events of oppression and abhorrent violence toward Africans affect Soho in such a way as to reduce him to a coma. Similarly, society is bogged down by this brutal inhumanity and is repressed by the social inequality apparent during the apartheid. All of the wounds of the victims are reflected onto society, prohibiting it from prospering. With recognition of the injustice, Soho comes out of the coma, just as society recognizes and then forbids such cruelty. However, in this film, Soho returns to his exact place, leaving an uncertain end. Is he restored to his previous condition because he knows of the truth or was nothing learned, nothing changed? Is this truly a reflection of society?
The film is eerie in that it does reflect society and the evaluation of events retrospectively. It was a direct response to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee that allowed for victims to be heard and for perpetrators to request amnesty4. With the debate of the effectiveness of the committee, Kentridge’s work could represent either a knowing society correcting a horrible mistake, or an inherently unequal society that further brings out that inequality. In parallel, after discovering the disaster, Soho recovers either by addressing it or by simply sitting back behind his powerful desk throne; Kentridge was purposely unclear.
It is this retrospective view of the crisis itself that brings any chance of retribution to power. However there is no guarantee how effective it may be. Regardless, that move toward justice and willingness to “right the wrong” is caused by the passage of time and an awakening to what has occurred. Only by recognizing the harsh reality of the apartheid era was the committee created, awakening society from its blind-to-the-truth coma even if there was a chance it was partly ineffective. As a result, Kentridge’s work with The History of the Main Complaint serves a purpose of its own by depicting the story of a man, but ultimately presents a general statement as a necessary reaction and reflection of society.
References
1. Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn. William Kentridge. Societé des Expositions du Palais de Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, 1998.
2. History of the Main Complaint. William Kentridge. Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. 2008
3. History of the Main Complaint 1996. Elizabeth Manchester. Tate Online. February 2000
4. Jessica Dubow, R. R., History As The Main Complaint: William Kentridge and the Making of Post-Apartheid South Africa. Art History 2004, 27, (4), 671-690
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