William Kentridge: Elogy or lateral Thought – Perugia – Arte.it

Perugia – last night, July 8, 2025, William Kentridge He went on stage of the Caio Melisso Theater – Space Carla FendIa spoleto to keep A lecture That turned into a real show. More than a theoretical intervention, the South African artist offered A performance with a theatrical and poetic toneWoven reflection, story and moving images. At the center of his speech, the concept of “less good idea”, or the least good idea, the person born in the margins of the main project, which often emerges unexpectedly, as a deviation from the original idea, and that for this reason is fertile, vitally, unexpected possibilities.

As Kentridge said, this idea was born of an African saying that reads: “If the good doctor cannot heal you, look for a less good doctor“If the good doctor cannot heal you, he will find a less good doctor. From this intuition he was born in 2016 in Johannesburg de Center for the less good ideaFounded together with the artist Bronwyn Lace. The center is an experimentation laboratory in which artists, poets, artists, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and musicians meet, with the aim of generating new collective languages, escaping the production logic and expectations of the artistic system.

On stage, next to Kentridge, the actor Andrea Fabi He gave voice to texts from the diaries and works by the artist and called on the several projects born in the center. To mark the story, the musical improvisations of Neo MuyangaComposer and co-director of the center, who interventions on the piano intertwined with the visual materials that are projected on stage. The entire performance is configured as a mobile assembly of words, sounds, signs, animations and objects, where thoughts take shape in the action itself, in the current time of execution, between personal memory and collective voltage. A lecture that was fun and playful, ironically, very serious as a few. The center of gravity of Kentridge is in an idea, but not the right one, the least good. To escape from the “violent” dictatorship of doing the right, perfect and therefore resulting and inevitably assertive, therefore intended for dogmatism. The less just idea, a little loser, which is briefly the fallback, is also an existential and therefore creative philosophy. A space that develops in the fractures of the imperfection of history and therefore human, very human. A center that therefore also becomes a refuge – shelter – for idiots, how much and as needed, when needed. A little monthly Piton, but a very serious tool to generate lateral, creative thinking, explosive and revolutionary propulsion engine. In short, Kentridge succeeded in making us a little bit. Of course also have fun together with those two other crazy Madmen from Fabi and Muyanga who came on stage together to remind us that there are at least two options for us (but are they more, who knows?): Rationally worn as “a Danish architect” with his rules and with his stripes or cat. Or maybe both things at the same time. The most important thing for Kentridge is to praise and have the advantage of the doubt in the public, which is then active and complicit in building the meaning and to understand that we can embody to continue the good ideas if they can fail to find the cracks, in errors, “jumps over the gap”, make an illogical jump for the firal filler’s. Therefore go further and walk creatively in chaos.

A direct ultrasound of this philosophy is visibly founded in the exhibition on the former Baptisterie of the Golden Manna, which houses the exhibition until July 27 Unholished not – break – Pepper’s Ghost Dioramasborn in the center for the less good idea and made it possible Carla Fendi Foundation and from Mahler & Lewitt Studios With the curatorship of Guy Robertson . Four installations in the form of animated dioramas use the optical technique of Pepper’s Ghost, invented in the 19th century to create theatrical illusions, to organize historical and personal memories, between visions and traumas. In TataL’Arista You don’t say It evokes the figure of the anti-apartiness hunter father: in a Geminiaturized landscape, military boots multiply as threatening attendees. In NoakovskyKentridge builds a visual story about the figure of the Russian poet, between revolutionary utopia and individual tragedy.

The spectators move for oblique mirrors, semi -reflective glass, objects and projections that appear and disappear, in a perceptual game that makes the invisible visible. The works are only activated in the presence of the audience, creating a compelling experience that reminds us of the spectrum of memory and the difficulty of separating the past. It is not a matter of erasing or removing, but to show what, even if desired, it can no longer “deny”.

To end the evening, the assignment to William Kentridge of the Carla Fendi Steam 2025 Award, Recognition attributed to figures who know how to combine art, science, technology and social involvement. In the case of Kentridge, the bonus honors an artistic practice that has always melted different languages ​​- from design to theater, from cinema to work – and a tireless activity in creating spaces of listening, freedom and invention. The center for the less good idea today is one of the most innovative models to consider art as a place of relationship, as a form of responsibility, as an opening for the other. The choice of the Festival of the Two Worlds and the Carla Fendi Foundation, on which we are very personal applause, confirms the center of this vision: an art that does not show certainties but builds questions that do not need solutions, but possibly offer opportunities to meet the space of uncertainty as a privileged country of creation.

The presence in Spoleto di Kentridge will continue until the weekend, with the staging as part of the festival of the two worlds of the theatrical show “The great yes, the great no“Who offers the public two appointments on Saturday July 12 and Sunday July 13, 2025 to New theater Gian Carlo Menotti.

For more information:


Festival of the two worlds
Carla Fendi Foundation
Mahler & Lewitt Studios
Kentridge Studio