William KentridgePaper Procession III, 2023
Kentridge’s ‘Paper Procession’ sculptures were initially created from hand-torn logbook pages from the pages of a 19th-century accounting journal from the Chiesa di San Francesco Saverio in Palermo.
He experimented with the original paper fragments on his studio and kitchen tables, until forms started to present themselves. As he put it, “You play with these shapes and then this one starts to become like a woman leaning forward, and so on, and so on. It’s about letting yourself be guided by your eyes.”
These semi-abstract, humanoid, brightly coloured paper fragments were then transformed into larger forms, that appear paper thin and fragile and prone to flying away in the next breeze, but are in fact painted aluminium panels fixed to steel armatures, resembling moving sketches that convey a sense of dance and procession. As such, they feel anti-monumental, perennially ‘at play’ in ways that defy their mass and solidity.
