William Kentridge (Johannesburg, 1955) in his works reworks the tensions of the apartheid years in South Africa and the contradictions of the path of reconciliation that followed, as well as gives voice to the complexity of conflicts in contemporary society, and the relationship between desire, memory, and ethical responsibility.
The Archive was born through a specific agreement between the artist and CRRI and is dedicated to the collection of discarded and waste materials produced by the artist. Unique in the world, this archive recognizes the importance of Kentridge’s method, which focuses on erasure, clipping, and continuous transformation. Closely related to the dimension of the artist’s studio work and the everyday tools that are part of it, the collection includes materials used for drawing, including chalks, charcoals, and fabric flaps; photographs used to fine-tune the environmental backgrounds, poses, and actions of the characters in his film works; sketches, notes, and collages for his animated films, as well as heterogeneous materials. The materials in the archive were exhibited in 2021 at the Castello di Rivoli in the exhibition From the Studio of William Kentridge. The presence of this archive at the CRRI makes it possible to delve into Kentridge’s activity and thought from the intimate dimension of the studio, a space-time in which the outside world takes the form of an ever-changing narrative.