For the South African artist William Kentridge, the social and political repercussions of apartheid and its aftermath are still very much part of his worldview. As he has said, "I can't remember a stage when I was not aware of living in an unnatural place." Such unnaturalness is translated into the images he produces for film, puppet theater, sculpture, and, most importantly, drawings and prints, which are simultaneously narrative and enigmatic, realistic and fantastic.

Here, in Casspirs Full of Love, an oversize print of elongated proportions, the composition is dominated by a tall, rectangular form (a ladder? a coffin?) filled with seven severed heads. Various messages (for example, "what comfort now?" and "not a step") and graffiti-like scribblings enhance the picture's grim visual warning and add to our discomfort. Most prominent are the words "casspirs full of love," which refer to the armored tanks (casspirs) used by the South African military to control uprisings in the townships and which echo the actual radio messages sent to soldiers in the field by their families. Using South Africa as his point of departure, the artist has created a work of universal significance.