William Kentridge is a draughtsman, performer, and filmmaker, as well as the founder of The Centre for the Less Good Idea.

In an interview with Marian Goodman Gallery about his contributions to the Long Minute series, Kentridge said:

“This has been for me a very quiet time, with many weeks of not travelling, of simply working in the studio. I’m conscious of being particularly fortunate, in the circumstances, of having a studio in the garden as I’m very aware of many other artists who can’t actually get into their studios because they are in different areas to where they live; and of the difference of being an artist who can keep at work compared with dancers, actors and some musicians for whom it is impossible to even practice their métier, let alone get paid for it, because they don’t have access to dance studios, rehearsal spaces and so on.

To continue work at the centre during the period of social isolation and lockdown, we invited participants, alumni of the centre, to make one-minute films, using their cell phones as cameras, for a series called ‘The Long Minute’, so every day we’ve been posting different films by filmmakers, dancers, authors, musicians on Instagram and Facebook.

Because the lockdown has meant being without the many participants and collaborators I would usually work with in the studio. Today’s post is the sixth of these one-minute films, which are connected with ‘The Natural History of the Studio’, a new, broader project dwelling on the solitary activities of the studio, which of course are the major part of it – of drawings, of animations – trying to work out the relationship, in a way, between the activities of the studio and thinking.”

Concept & Creation | William Kentridge
Video Editor & Compositor | Žana Marović
Music | Joseph Haydn Piano Sonata No. 62 in E-Flat Major, Hob. XVI_52_ II. Adagio
Curator of The Long Minute | Bronwyn Lace