Icarus Films announced this past week that documentary filmmaker Catherine Meyburgh’s 2009 art world-themed film, Kentridge and Dumas in Conversation, will make its long-overdue DVD debut on Jan. 31.
Meyburgh, who is an award-winning sound designer and film editor by trade, had the very good fortune of capturing an intimate discussion of Marlene Dumas and William Kentridge featuring their works, from drawings, paintings and their respective involvement in the world of film.
Marlene Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in the world of apartheid, and found expression of the inequities she witnessed through her art. Most notably “Evil is Banal” (1984), “The Painter” (1994), “Dorothy D-Lite” (1998), the Yoko Ono-inspired “Jen” as well as the controversial “The Neighbor” (2005) are among her celebrated works.
Her conversation mate, William Kentridge, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and took a somewhat different route to fame in the art world. While, Dumas was immersed, educationally, in the art culture in both South Africa and The Netherlands, Kentridge’s formal education was in Politics and African studies, before abruptly changing direction and studying fire arts at the Johannesburg Art Foundation … thus setting him on a course of blending history and politics with his art.
He is noted for such eclectic works as “Arc/Procession: Develop, Catch Up, Even Surpass” (1990), the animated short film titled Felix in Exile (1994), the visually-impressive, “Sleeper-Red” (1997) and the avant-garde film exhibition in 2008 titled I am not me, the horse is not mine.
Two very different artists — in both approach and style — Meyburgh captured them on film discussing their works, their respective backgrounds and the process/inspirations that have brought both of them to international fame.
Kentridge and Dumas in Conversation on DVD this coming Jan. 31 from Icarus Films also includes footage of both artists at work in their respective studios.
