William Kentridge ::
Overvloed , 1999

film transfered on DVD, Ton, approx. 6 min
size of projection variable
courtesy William Kentridge

animation, film, directed by William Kentridge
editing: Catherine Meyburgh
music: Alfred Makgamele

William Kentridge’s dealing with the medium film is in a way a documentation of the actual production process. When the drawings are filmed in their continous change they become animations as an ephemeral metaphor for memory, cognition and repression. Overvloed [Dutch: »flood«, »abundance«] was produced in 1999 as a site-specific work for the monumental Civic Hall in Amsterdam. The film was projected onto its vaulted baroque ceiling. Overvloed shows animated drawings, silhouetted figures wandering through the projected oval, found footage, accompanied by fragments of East-African and Dutch sayings from the „Dutch Golden Era“ and melancholic songs and accordion music. Mirrors are prepared for the visitors which enable them to decipher the partly inverted aphorisms in the projection. On its symbolic level the work is based on the historical relations of South Africa and the Netherlands; it functions as a remark to the colonial history of the Netherlands.