William Kentridge (b. 1955, Johannesburg)

Video Still from Notes Towards a Model Opera 

2015, installation, film, video, three-channel video projection, colour, sound; 11 minutes, 22 seconds

Photo by William Kentridge Studio. Courtesy of the artist and William Kentridge Studio. ©William Kentridge.

The ‘less good idea’ is a central concept to Kentridge’s work, taking its name from the Tswana proverb – “If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor”. It informs Kentridge’s own practice and is very much based on the idea that failure can inspire a creative response in the search for an alternative solution.  Here we see a video still of young people holding placards which say, “Find the Less Good Idea” and “Hide Not in the Leafy Garden”, another slogan which also seems to urge us out of our comfort zones.  The still comes from Notes Towards a Model Opera, an installation and video which began with an invitation to show a selection of Kentridge’s work in a museum in Beijing.  Kentridge chose as his theme ‘model operas’, productions involving ballet, music and martial arts put on during the Communist revolution in China to rouse young people to fight for their beliefs.  Kentridge describes the project as an example of “peripheral thinking”. What do you think this might mean?