Thinking in Water (suite of three images)

Thinking in Water is a particularly successful translation of Kentridge’s style into object form. A small-edition multiple created at Dieu Donné Papermill in New York, the work consists of three sheets of hand-made paper. Seen in direct light, these sheets seem opaque and blank. Illuminated from behind, they become transparent and reveal two layers of mark. The first, a finer, bright line, is a watermark, formed in copper wire that was attached to the paper mold and thinned the sheet in that passage. The second, a broader, dark line, was created by pouring excess pulp across the freshly pulled sheets. The motifs, the phrases, the interplay of their forms and meanings are characteristic of Kentridge’s favorite themes and recent work. And it is hard to miss the relationships, conceptual and practical, between his animation and this work of three units, implicit sequence, and appearance only with the projection of light. Most striking, however, is the expression of this personal vocabulary and filmic metaphor through paper itself: the essential material of the written word and language. In recent years, Kentridge has made a number of conventional prints, principally woodcuts. They are very handsome emblems of his style, but sacrifice ambiguity in their concreteness. Aptly titled, Thinking in Water captures a deeper, quicker stream-of-consciousness.