William KENTRIDGE
William Kentridge lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa as an artist, designer, writer, actor and director. In 1976 he received a BA in politics and African studies from the University of the Witwatersrand and then studied art from 1976 to 1978 at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. Alongside his academic pursuits, Kentridge has been active in the theater since the mid-1970s. A founding member of the Junction Avenue Theater Company, established in 1975, he later worked with the Free Filmmakers Cooperative, established in 1988, and has continued his involvement with theater and film. Following his first solo exhibition, at the Market Gallery in Johannesburg in 1979, his work has been shown extensively throughout Europe and the United States, including recent solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, Centre Georges Pompidu in Paris, and Castello di Rivoli in Rivoli, Italy. He is the recipient of various awards, including the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film Festival, the Carnegie Prize, the Sarjah Biennial Prize, and the Kaisserring prize from the Monchehaus-Museum fur Moderne Kunst in Golstar, Germany.