Strauss & co - 16 March 2015, Cape Town

pylons of the actual monument, a thousand feet high, would be monstrous. But there is an image of Tatlin and his assistants clambering around the model, huge enough itself, a hope and certainty that I can only envy. Such hope, particularly here and now, seems impossible. The failures of those hopes and ideals, their betrayals, are too powerful and too numerous. I cannot paint pictures of a future like that and believe in the pictures. Which may not be necessary. Good propaganda can come from craft and conscientiousness rather than conviction, although it is hard. In the few posters I have designed on request, irony (the last refuge of the petit bourgeoisie) creeps through, and passion is reduced to a bitter joke. Ultimately my belief in the democratic socialist revolution is tainted. Not by doubting its need or desirability, but because it seems unwarranted optimism to think it will occur. Even if it did I do not know how I would fit into it. Where does that leave me, with neither a belief in an attained (even partial) state of grace, nor with a belief in an immanent redemption here. 598 William Joseph KENTRIDGE south african 1 955- News from Nowhere executed in 2007 signed and numbered 12/35 in pencil in the margin, with Artists’Press and Goodman Gallery chop marks hand lithograph and collage 160 by 122cm R180 000–240 000 literature John McDonald. (2008) William Kentridge: Telegrams From The Nose , Sydney: Annandale Galleries. Illustrated in colour on page 7. notes Another example from this edition is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. 598 253