“9 Drawings for Projection (1989–2003),” 2005, by William Kentridge. Copyright and courtesy of William Kentridge.

Since his first American retrospective in 2001, South African artist William Kentridge (born 1955) has earned accolades for his versatile and poetic art practice. He is perhaps best known for his haunting drawings, often animated into films that engage memory and South Africa’s collective history of apartheid, labor and industrialization. Join us for a program honoring Kentridge, whose work is on view in both To Count Art an Intimate Friend and Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa. On February 4 in Smith Auditorium the Museum will screen “10 Drawings for Projection,” a compilation of ten short films by the artist on loan from the George Eastman Museum. After the screening, Bowdoin faculty members Sarah Childress, Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies; David Gordon, Professor of History; and Mark Wethli, A. LeRoy Greason Professor of Art, will discuss Kentridge’s work