William Kentridge has been awarded The Queen Sonja Lifetime Achievement Award. The Award celebrates an artist’s career and lifetime contribution to graphic art and printmaking.
Kentridge was presented with the Award by Her Majesty Queen Sonja at an Award Ceremony at the new Munch Museum in Oslo. He joins past winners of the Award: David Hockney (2018) and Paula Rego (2020).
William Kentridge – a student of political science as well as fine art in the 1970s – started in the field of printmaking by creating screen-printed posters for trade unions, student protests and theatre companies. The artist has since continued to investigate notions of politics and philosophy, with a wide spectrum of printmaking techniques, where he displays a mastery of the craft and outstanding draughtsmanship.
In his works, he plays with multiple lines and sequential progressions, juxtaposing text and image, working with contrasts of black ink against white paper. Questions of identity, dislocation, memory, and perception are often set against the social and political landscape of South Africa’s past and present. His prints are filled with ambiguities and contradictions, exploring what is purportedly civilised and rational.
