As the globe’s art lovers gather at Frieze London, Anna Wallace-Thompson interviews one of the world’s greatest living artists exclusively for LUX.  The expansive career of William Kentridge has seen him design opera sets, stage multidisciplinary performances and create hard-hitting and poignant drawings and animations. His work explores the legacy of apartheid, as well as the human condition, and the ever-repeating cycles of history and memory.
When William Kentridge was three years old, he wanted to be an elephant. At 15, he declared his intention to become a conductor, but was somewhat crestfallen to discover one needed to know how to read music in order to do this. In his twenties, he decided to attend theatre school, and it was there, he says, that he found the confidence to realise he would never become an actor. At 30, a friend broke the news to him: stop calling yourself a technician, or a set designer. You?re an artist! No more talking about ?falling back? on a sensible career ? time to sink or swim. This should have come as no surprise, for Kentridge had always been drawing and creating ? ?to make sense of the world?. At 34, he had a breakthrough. His 1989 animated film Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris introduced an intrigued audience to the first of what would become nine films chronicling the rise and fall of the characters Soho Eckstein, his wife, and her lover Felix Teitelbaum ? all brought to life, in charcoal, through a unique draw...