William Kentridge appointed honorary doctor at the Artistic Faculty

Born in Johannesburg in 1955, Kentridge has become one of South Africa’s most internationally renowned contemporary artists. His practice spans a wide range of forms, from charcoal drawings and animated films to theatre and opera. Drawing remains at the centre of his work, often developing into larger productions through collaboration with musicians, composers, performers and other artists.
“Almost all of them involve drawing as the starting point. Sometimes the drawing is set in motion and becomes animation. Sometimes there are performers in front of the projected animation, then it becomes theatre. Sometimes music is added and it becomes opera.”

Johannesburg as a starting point

Despite his international career, Kentridge has remained in Johannesburg throughout his life. Staying in one place has allowed him to develop long-standing creative relationships and to observe the changes in the city over several decades.
“For me, having lived 70 years in Johannesburg and most of my life in one house, there's a depth of connection, certainly to particular collaborators I've worked with for decades,” he says.

He believes that gaining a deeper understanding of a place, in this case Johannesburg, can also offer insights into other societies.
“It gives you a sort of premonition of what might unfold in many other places around the world.”

Johannesburg and South Africa’s history are recurring themes in Kentridge’s work, which engages with colonialism, apartheid and political violence. Rather than offering definitive answers, Kentridge explores how we construct our understanding of history and the world around us. 

For Kentridge, artworks are assembled from fragments of the world, which are rearranged and presented in a new form. This process can reveal the uncertainty underlying our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
“It is easy to know what you are against. The harder question is what comes next, once the thing you opposed is gone.”

When the less good idea becomes the more interesting one

In 2016, Kentridge co-founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea, a space for experimental and collaborative artistic practices. 
“The name comes from an African proverb which says: ‘If a good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor.’”

The idea is closely connected to Kentridge’s own working process. He describes how, when he first began making animation, he tried to erase his charcoal drawings completely between frames. He wanted each new image to be clean, with no traces of the previous drawing.
“However hard I tried, I couldn’t perfectly erase it. There was always a trace behind whatever I was drawing as the image changed. And for me, this was a fault.”

Over time, he realized that what he had initially considered a mistake was actually one of the defining qualities of his films.
“Over time, I came to realise that the traces of earlier images, and the passage of time they captured, were among the defining qualities of the drawings.”

The experience reflects his belief that artists must remain open to discoveries that emerge during the process of making, rather than assuming they know the outcome in advance.
“A poet once wrote that a poem needs to know more than the poet. If the poet knows everything the poem is going to do, why bother to write it?”

Learning to recognize the unexpected

This approach also informs Kentridge’s views on art education. Asked whether art students should focus on knowing what they want to do or on recognising something unexpected when it happens, he places greater value on the latter. 
“I believe artists should prioritise recognising unexpected possibilities as they emerge in the creative process, rather than deciding in advance what they want to achieve.”

He emphasizes that this does not mean abandoning reading, thinking or preparation. Rather, artists should not feel they must resolve every question before beginning to work.
“It's not an argument against reading or thinking; it's an argument against saying you can't start until you've worked out all the problems in advance.”

Kentridge also believes practicing artists can play an important role in art education by sharing their experiences and showing students that there are many different paths towards becoming an artist. They can also offer a counterweight to the tendency in some art schools to require artists to explain and plan their work in advance.

For Kentridge, art schools also provide an important community for young artists, who may otherwise face considerable uncertainty when they leave their studies and begin working independently.
“All of these anxieties beset many young artists, and practicing artists can give a perspective and sometimes a reassurance about this.”

An honorary doctorate in Gothenburg

Although Kentridge has visited other parts of Sweden, Gothenburg is a new acquaintance. For him, the honorary doctorate is an opportunity to discover how his work resonates beyond the place where it was created.
“And also for me, it's a pleasure to find that my work, which is very local, very Johannesburg-based, has an echo in other parts of the world. And that's a reassurance that is very pleasing.”