William Kentridge and Eleanor Wachtel: Live in Conversation

Special Events

Monday April 21, 2025 | 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

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TICKET PRICE: $14.11
VENUE: Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Henry N.R. Jackman Lounge (145 Queen St. West)

William Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre and opera productions. This spring, his visionary production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck premieres for Canadian audiences at the Canadian Opera Company after being hailed as “extraordinary” by The New York Times and “rich, expansive, and revelatory” by the Wall Street Journal.

Join Koffler Arts and the Canadian Opera Company in welcoming Kentridge in conversation with Eleanor Wachtel, renowned host of the flagship literary show Writers & Company for more than 33 years, as well as Wachtel On the Arts, on CBC Radio One.

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (born Johannesburg, South Africa, 1955) combines drawing, writing, film, performance, music, theatre, and collaborative practices to create works of art that are grounded in politics, science, literature and history, yet maintaining a space for contradiction and uncertainty.

Kentridge’s work has been seen in museums and galleries around the world since the 1990s, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Musée du Louvre in Paris, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Zeitz MOCAA and the Norval Foundation in Cape Town and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He has participated a number of times in Documenta in Kassel (2012, 2002,1997) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2005, 1999 and 1993).

Opera productions include Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Shostakovich’s The Nose, and Alban Berg’s operas Lulu and Wozzeck, and have been seen at opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, English National Opera in London, Opera de Lyon, Amsterdam opera, the Sydney Opera House and the Salzburg Festival.

Kentridge’s theatrical productions, performed in theatres and at festivals across the globe include Refuse the Hour, Winterreise, Paper Music, The Head & the Load, Ursonate, Sibyl and The Great Yes, The Great No and in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, Ubu & the Truth Commission, Faustus in Africa!, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse and Woyzeck on the Highveld.

In 2016, Kentridge founded the Centre for Less Good Idea in Johannesburg: a space for responsive thinking and making through experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts practices. The centre hosts an ongoing programme of workshops, public performances, and mentorship activities.

Kentridge is the recipient of honorary doctorates from several universities including Yale, London University and Columbia University. In 2010, he received the Kyoto Prize. In 2012, he was awarded the Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and he presented the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. In 2015 he was appointed an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy in London. In 2017, he received the Princesa de Asturias Award for the arts, and in 2018, the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize. In 2019 he received the Praemium Imperiale award in painting in Tokyo. In 2021 he was made a Foreign Associate Member to the French Académie des Beaux Arts, Paris. In 2022 he was presented the Honour of the Order of the Star of Italy and in 2023 he received the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for Sibyl in London.

His work can be found in the collections of Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth), Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Museum of Art (New York), San Diego Museum of Art, Fondation Cartier (Paris), Zetiz MoCAA (Cape Town), Norval Foundation (Cape Town), LACMA (Los Angeles), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Sharjah Art Foundation, Mudam (Luxembourg), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montreal, MoMA (New York), SF MoMA (San Francisco), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Moderna Museet, Stockholm, MoCA (Los Angeles), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Johannesburg Art Gallery, MAXXI (Rome), Louisiana Museum (Humlebaek,Denmark), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto), Israel Museum (Jerusalem), Inhotim Museum (Brumadinho, Brazil), Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), Tate Modern (London), Sifang Art Museum (Nanjing), Kunsthalle Mannheim, Vehbi Koç Foundation (Istanbul), Luma Foundation (Arles), Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest), Fundació Sorigué (Lleida, Spain), Guggenheim (Abu Dhabi), Kunsthalle Praha (Prague) and Amorepacific Museum of Art (Seoul); as well as private collections worldwide.

ELEANOR WACHTEL was the cofounder and host of CBC Radio’s award-winning Writers & Company for more than three decades. She also hosted Wachtel on the Arts and was the moderator of TIFF’s popular Books on Film series. Five selections of her conversations have been published, including Original Minds and The Best of Writers & Company. She's earned numerous accolades, including nine honorary degrees and Officer of the Order of Canada.