“I’m

interested

in

what

happens

when

you

smash

different

things

together”

–

an

intimate

conversation

with

William

Kentridge

To write about William Kentridge’s career is to wonder whether any page can hold it. A true polymath, he has spent more than fifty years working from Johannesburg and travelling the world, speaking through many different artistic mediums. Printmaking, drawing, animation, film, theatre, sculpture, and opera all coexist in his practice, yet at its core lie his signature charcoal drawings and his lifelong urge to record and reorder history – disassembling and reassembling fragments to help us understand it. His major exhibitions span the Royal Academy, Whitechapel Gallery, Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Louisiana Museum, and he has appeared at both Documenta and the Venice Biennale multiple times.

Yet despite the scale of his career, the image he offers at the beginning of this interview is modest, almost stage-lit. He sits in his office, at a table, his Labrador curled at his feet. Behind him, the studio lights burn warm; beyond the window, a thunderstorm gathers. In this quiet collision of visuals are the coordinates of his creative life: the storm as future projects peering over the horizon, the studio lights as refuge, the dog as emblem of connection with those around him. His answers – hilarious yet deadpan, self-effacing yet assured – unfold into a masterclass in artistic method, delivered in a gravelly voice alive with restless, relentless imagination.