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

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre, and opera productions. Embracing collaboration and cross-pollination of various media and genres, including performance, film, literature, and more, his work frequently responds to the legacies of colonialism and apartheid, within the context of South Africa's socio-political landscape. Erasure, play, uncertainty, and a process-led methodology are also central to his practice. A background in theatre, as well as his early experimentations with stop-motion animation continue to inform and characterise much of the work he produces today, be it for the stage, the gallery, in the studio or the lecture hall.

In early 2016, Kentridge met with fellow artist Bronwyn Lace to discuss his ideas for an interdisciplinary incubator space for the arts based in Maboneng, where his own studio is located. As conversations developed and ideas began to take shape about what the space could be, Kentridge shared with Lace a Tswana proverb he’d used in one of his Blue Rubric works: ‘If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor’. The grammatically clumsy and awkward phrase captured, perfectly, the periphery and secondary nature of the artistic process, and thus the methodology and philosophy of The Centre for the Less Good Idea was born.

For Kentridge, The Centre for the Less Good Idea is a space that is partially informed by his own artistic practice and processes, while also affording him a space to experiment and collaborate with fellow artists, performers, and ways of working. It is this ability to be both in and outside of The Centre that sees Kentridge working to hold, inform, question, and draw out the seemingly disparate lines of thought that are necessary agitators and animators for the particular kinds of work that take shape in the mixed-media terrain of the space.

In addition to his facilitation of and participation in The Centre’s Seasons of work, Kentridge also drives many of its IN CONVERSATION artist talks, and frequently collaborates with invited artists, composers, performers, and academics for its FOR ONCE events.

PHOTOGRAPHER | Zivanai Matangi