Synopsis

The decline of Johannesburg Art Gallery remembered by the artist as it was in his childhood days is shown alongside the daily routine of zama-zamas, illegal gold miners of that city. The composer Nhlanhla Mahlangu's mournful soundtrack accompanied by the constant sound of zama-zamas digging has a prophetic feel of something terrible that is going to happen, reinforced by the billboard phrases: Wait for better gods…wait for better people…

William Kentridge

South African artist William Kentridge (1955) is one of the most eminent figures of the contemporary art world. Born in Johannesburg, in a family of barristers of Lithuanian origins (his father Sydney Kentridge defended great South African activists for the rights of black people such as Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Albert Luthuli) he becomes aware of the unnaturalness and injustice of apartheid from his early age. After studies in acting for a year in Paris, he majored in politics and African studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Through permeation of various artistic expressions (drawings, printmaking, animated films, theatre and opera productions, sculptures, tapestries, video installations, performances) with already proverbial space he gives to categories of uncertainty and doubt, Kentridge continues to examine the burning issues of the contemporary society: migrations, racism, postcolonialism, memory and oblivion, recorded history and its methodology, the role of art and artists in present times.

Kentridge’s work has been seen in museums and galleries around the world since the 1990s, 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, the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Zeitz MOCAA, the Norval Foundation in Cape Town and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He has participated several times in Documenta in Kassel (2012, 2002, 1997) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2005, 1999, 1993).

Opera productions include Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Shostakovich’s The Nose, and Alban Berg’s operas Lulu and Wozzeck, and have been seen at opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, English National Opera in London, Opera de Lyon, Amsterdam Opera, the Sydney Opera House and the Salzburg Festival.

Kentridge’s theatrical productions, performed in theatres and at festivals across the globe include Refuse the Hour, Winterreise, Paper Music, The Head & theLoad, Ursonate and Waiting for the Sibyl and in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, Ubu & the Truth Commission, Faustus in Africa!, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, and Woyzeck on the Highveld. In 2023, Waiting for the Sibyl, performed at the Barbican Theatre in London, won Olivier Award for the Outstanding Achievement in Opera.

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.

Kentridge is the recipient of honorary doctorates from several universities including Yale, London University and Columbia University. In 2010, he received the Kyoto Prize. In 2012, he presented the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. In 2015 he was appointed an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy in London. In 2017, he received the Princesa de Asturias Award for the arts, and in 2018, the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize. In 2019 he received the Praemium Imperiale award in painting in Tokyo. In 2022 he was presented the Honour of the Order of the Star of Italy and the Queen Sonja Lifetime Achievement Award for printmaking.

His work can be found in the collections of the major museums and galleries worldwide, as well as public and private foundations.

Photo ©Norbert Miguletz