Another man on the ‘Moon’

Noted South African artist and animator William Kentridge will make a rare West Coast appearance to discuss his work this weekend at the MOCA Pacific Design Center.

The free event at 3 p.m. Sunday, part of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Art Talks” series, is being held in conjunction with the opening of “William Kentridge: 7 Fragments for Georges Melies,” an exhibition of nine brief films the artist created in 2003 in tribute to turn-of-the-century French filmmaker Melies and his pioneering techniques in stop-motion photography, dissolves and multiple exposures.

The films, featuring the artist’s interactions with his own drawings, will be projected together at Kentridge’s request, said exhibition curator Alma Ruiz-Furlan, who described them as “whimsical and engaging.”

They will run in continuous loops on separate screens in one room, “so people are able to be totally immersed in the experience,” he said.

In addition to the seven shorts that make up “Fragments,” the installation features Kentridge’s “Day for Night” -- with ants -- and another Melies homage: “Journey to the Moon,” based on “Le Voyage dans la Lune,” the filmmaker’s 1902 fantastical sci-fi vision based on Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon.”

“Journey to the Moon” is Kentridge’s “own interpretation of that story,” Ruiz-Furlan said, “which he creates inside his studio, making us believe that his studio is the rocket that is going to land on the moon.”

The Francois Truffaut- inspired “Day for Night,” using filtering techniques to create the illusion of a night scene, was sparked by an infestation of ants in Kentridge’s studio.

The little creepy-crawlies became Kentridge’s drawing and animation tool as he directed their movements with trails of sugar on paper.

Kentridge’s signature method of graphic animation is deliberately low-tech and time-intensive: With charcoal, he draws each frame, rubbing, erasing and redrawing to create the fluid movement that furthers phantasmagoric, multilayered visual narratives with varied comic and serious themes.

This is the museum’s first exhibition of the artist’s work.