William Kentridge

Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot (2024)

Prolific South African artist and filmmaker William Kentridge chronicles how he creates intricate, wall-sized charcoal drawings of the vistas from his childhood in Johannesburg and life-sized paintings of himself — all while ruminating on the puzzle of s ...

Pain & Sympathy (2024)

With his video History of the Main Complaint (1996) serving as a backdrop, William Kentridge discusses how artists draw upon tragedy as subject matter for their work and how drawing itself can be a compassionate act. ...

Oh to Believe in Another World (2022)

An immersive five-channel projection made in response to Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No.10. ...

City Deep (2020)

In City Deep, the "zama zama" miners and the landscape merge into artworks hanging in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, itself built during the heyday of gold mining in Johannesburg. Wandering the exhibition spaces is a deeply contemplative Soho Eckstein, gazi ...

The Metropolitan Opera: Wozzeck (2020)

Berg's 20th-century shocker stars baritone Peter Mattei in the title role, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium and soprano Elza van den Heever as the long-suffering Marie. Groundbreaking visual artist and director William Kentridge unv ...

Go to the Light (2019)

Wozzeck (2018)

A study of a man's physical and mental limitations. In the 24 quite harsh and grueling fragments of the unfinished drama, a body and a mind are tested as far as they can be pushed before their owner goes over the edge. Is there just one thing that proves t ...

Schubert: Winterreise (2017)

Franz Schubert´s Winterreise engages with its audience in a new and unexpected form. Matthias Goerne, 'the voice of perfection' (Le Figaro), pianist Markus Hinterhäuser and South African director, set designer and theatrical artist William Kentridge join ...

The Metropolitan Opera: Lulu (2015)

William Kentridge's multi-layered production of Berg's masterpiece stars charismatic soprano Marlis Petersen in the title role—the enigmatic and alluring woman who is equal parts femme fatale, innocent girl, and abused victim. The men around her, whose l ...

More Sweetly Play the Dance (2015)

The new work made by William Kentridge specially for EYE is a 45-metre-long frieze that depicts an endless parade of figures who collectively form a kaleidoscopic image of people on the move. These are pictures that hit us every day through the media, of p ...

The Metropolitan Opera: The Nose (2013)

Acclaimed artist William Kentridge directed and designed this visually dazzling Met premiere production of Shostakovich's satirical opera, adapted from the classic short story by Nikolai Gogol. Baritone Paulo Szot leads the cast as Kovalyov, the hapless bu ...

Second-hand Reading (2013)

A film constructed from a succession of drawings on old books. ...

Tango for Page Turning (2013)

"Tango for Page Turning" belongs to a constellation of work created for "Refuse the Hour", a multimedia chamber opera conceived and written by Kentridge in collaboration with composer Philip Miller and fellow South African choreographer Dada Masilo. ...

Mozart: Die Zauberflote (2012)

From the Queen of the Night's vocal pyrotechnics to Papageno's chirpy birdsongs, The Magic Flute is one of Mozart's most charming and engaging operas. However, its fairytale surface conceals the mysteries of an initiation ritual and a multi-layered plot, p ...

Other Faces (2011)

Other Faces returns to the figure of Soho Eckstein, the industrialist and developer who is the key protagonist of the Drawings for Projection series. In this cycle of nine films created from 1989 through 2003, Kentridge addresses the doubling and contrary ...

10 Drawings for Projection, 1989-2011 (2011)

An outdoor performance and film screening that brings together all of the short animated films from internationally renowned South African artist William Kentridge's Soho Eckstein series. ...

Drawing Lesson no. 47: Interview for Studio School (2010)

Kentridge interviews himself for a job. ...

(Repeat) From the Beginning (2008)

(REPEAT) From the Beginning is about fragmentation and reconnection, the fragility of coherence. The three projections, Breathe, Dissolve, Return offer three different ways of shattering an image and reconfiguring it. ...

Journey to the Moon (2003)

In KENTRIDGE's cross-disciplinary, cross-media world of artistic creation, images are not merely background supporting characters for theatre or installations, but are seen as an important intermediary to understanding the world. Taking Plato's 'Allegory o ...

Tide Table (2003)

The film sees a businessman (the Soho Eckstein figure from Kentridge's earlier films) standing on a hotel balcony watching the waves. Time passes, as the sea rolls back andforth in endless repetitions. We as viewers observed from his point of view. Then th ...

Automatic Writing (2003)

Charcoal animation, taken from from Point of View: An Anthology of the Moving Image (2003). ...

Stereoscope (1999)

Soho Eckstein is portrayed as interconnected with both images of the social injustices and upheaval of South Africa and his own sort of primal, fractured existence. ...

Weighing... and Wanting (1998)

Drawing, literally, from the story of Daniel and Belshazzar, William Kentridge's film Weighing… and Wanting re-examines the legacy of Belshazzar's message in post-apartheid South Africa. While the political climate shared by Belshazzar's kingdom and apar ...

Ubu Tells the Truth (1997)

Kentridge has combined images from documentary films and photographs together with moving puppets as well as his animated drawings. ...

History of the Main Complaint (1996)

History of the Main Complaint is the sixth film [of a] series and is based on twenty-one drawings. It was made shortly after the establishment in South Africa of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was set up to c ...

Felix in Exile (1994)

Felix in Exile introduces a new character to the 'Drawings for Projection' series: Nandi, an African woman, who appears at the beginning of the film making drawings of the landscape. She observes the land with surveyor's instruments, watching African bodie ...

Memo (1994)

A Kafka comedy in which simple office objects first escape from and finally overwhelm a middle-aged functionary. ...

Sobriety, Obesity, & Growing Old (1991)

Sobriety, Obesity and Growing Old picks up the narrative and themes begun in Kentridge's first film, Johannesburg the Second Greatest City after Paris, and follows the development of the relationships between his cast of invented characters, Soho Eckstein, ...

Mine (1991)

A journey into the mines provides a visual representation of a journey into the conscience of Kentridge's invented character, Soho Eckstein, the white South African property owner who exploits the resources of land and black human labour which are under hi ...

Monument (1990)

William Kentridge's Monument is a captivating short animated film about the unveiling of a statue dedicated to the South African work force. This monument comes to life, and continues to suffer under the elite white regime. This celebration and memoriali ...

Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris (1989)

William Kentridge's ironic tribute to his hometown, animated on the basis of 25 drawings, is the first film of his "Drawing for Protection" cycle, in which he unfolds the triangle between Johannesburg building tycoon Soho Eckstein, his wife, and the dreame ...

Vetkoek (1985)

He developed a method of filmmaking that he dubbed "poor-man's animation," in which he photographed charcoal drawings and collages as he gradually adjusted them, as in the early films Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris (1989) and Monument (1990). ...

Discourse on a Chair (1975)

Kentridge's first film, animation made with Magic Marker. ...

The Triumphs and Laments of William Kentridge (2016)

Alan Yentob joins South African artist William Kentridge as he prepares an epic frieze along the banks of the river Tiber in Rome. Alan visits him in his hometown of Johannesburg, the inspiration for the magical hand-drawn animated films he calls 'drawings ...

William Kentridge, Triumphs and Laments (2016)

The artist portrays the glories and tragedies of the Eternal City along the banks of the Tiber river in Rome. ...

Journey to the Moon (2003)

In KENTRIDGE's cross-disciplinary, cross-media world of artistic creation, images are not merely background supporting characters for theatre or installations, but are seen as an important intermediary to understanding the world. Taking Plato's 'Allegory o ...

William Kentridge - Drawing the Passing (1999)

Short documentation about the South African artist William Kentridge and his very unique animated films. ...