Drawing and mark making in Johannesburg 2nd greatest city after Paris

Abstract

In the animation film, Johannesburg 2nd Greatest City After Paris (1989), of the South African artist William Kentridge, he combines his charcoal drawings and mark makings with photography, in what he calls Drawings for Projection. This article investigates how Kentridge combines the graphic technique of drawing and trace with the photographic imprint, or the chemistry of the hand and the eye. Johannesburg and Paris are two great cities that played important roles in the private life of William Kentridge. Kentridge was born in Johannesburg and is still living there. In essence Johannesburg is a mining city with visible industrial souvenirs like the huge mine dumps, highways, billboards and mine shafts in the desolate landscape - a city built on speculation. By contrast, Paris is the city where Kentridge studied mime (1981 – 1982) at the École Jacques Lecoq and gained international exposure. With this film Kentridge remembers both Soho’s capitalist interior and the isolated barren landscape of the miners and the other workers.