William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1955 and is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theater productions, and operatic stagings. His multidisciplinary practice blends drawing, writing, film, performance, music, theater, and collaborative processes, creating works deeply rooted in politics, science, literature, and history—while always leaving room for contradiction and ambiguity. Since the 1990s, Kentridge's work has been exhibited in leading museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Louvre in Paris, the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Zeitz MOCAA and the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He has participated in multiple editions of Documenta in Kassel (2012, 2002, 1997) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2005, 1999, 1993). Kentridge has also made a significant mark in opera, directing productions of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Shostakovich’s The Nose, and Alban Berg’s Lulu and Wozzeck for some of the world’s most renowned opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, the English National Opera in London, the Opéra de Lyon, Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the Sydney Opera House, and the Salzburg Festival. His theatrical productions, staged in theaters and festivals across the globe, include Refuse the Hour, Winterreise, Paper Music, The Head & the Load, Ursonate, Sibyl, The Great Yes, The Great No, as well as collaborations with the Handspring Puppet Company on Ubu & the Truth Commission, Faustus in Africa!, The Return of Ulysses, and Woyzeck on the Highveld. In 2016, Kentridge founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg—an experimental, interdisciplinary space dedicated to responsive thinking and artistic collaboration. The center hosts an ongoing program of workshops, public performances, and mentorship initiatives. Kentridge has been awarded honorary doctorates from numerous institutions, including Yale University, the University of London, and Columbia University. His accolades include the Kyoto Prize (2010), the title of Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2012), and the opportunity to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. He was named an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2015), received the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts (2017), the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize (2018), and the Praemium Imperiale for Painting in Tokyo (2019). In 2021, he was elected Foreign Associate Member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, followed by the Order of the Star of Italy in 2022 and the Olivier Award for Excellence in Opera with Sibyl in London (2023). His works are housed in prestigious museum collections worldwide, including the MoMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou and Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the LACMA in Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the MAXXI in Rome, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, among many others.