William Kentridge, born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he lives and works, is internationally renowned for his drawings, films, opera and theater productions.
His multidisciplinary approach brings together drawing, writing, film, performance, music, theater, and collaborative practices to create artworks deeply rooted in politics, science, literature, and history, while always allowing space for contradiction and uncertainty.
Kentridge's work is particularly distinguished by his unique animated films. These are created through a meticulous process of drawing, erasing, and re-drawing on a single sheet of paper. The visible traces of erasure lead the viewer to reflect on themes of memory, the passage of time, and the provisional nature of history. This technique becomes a metaphor for transformation itself: nothing is permanent, and every act of creation carries within it the memory of what was and the potential for what might become. For Kentridge, the act of making is a form of thinking—a physical, intuitive process through which ideas emerge rather than precede the work. He once described his studio as a space of "uncertainty, doubt, and provisional conclusions." In this sense, the studio is not just a site of production, but of exploration and becoming.
His narratives frequently engage with the socio-political landscape of his native South Africa, particularly the complexities of apartheid and its aftermath, but transcend specific contexts to explore universal human experiences of conflict, identity, loss, and reconciliation in a world seen as a place of instability and change.
William Kentridge’s works first hit the international spotlight in 1997, when he took part in Documenta X in Kassel. His work has been seen in museums and galleries around the world since that time, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Musée du Louvre in Paris, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid and the Kunstmuseum in Basel. 2009 marked the beginning of 5 Themes, a major exhibition that opened at SFMoMA in San Francisco and then went on to MoMA in New York, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, and the Albertina in Vienna, among others.
In 2016 Kentridge founded the Centre for Less Good Idea in Johannesburg: a space for responsive thinking and making through experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts practices. The centre hosts an ongoing programme of workshops, public performances, and mentorship activities.
Visit the artist website: https://www.kentridge.studio/
