The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg headed by Co-Founders William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace have announced a Los Angeles Residency from Feb. 1 to 8.

The Wallis, CAP UCLA, and The Broad have joined together to present three facets of the work of The Centre for the Less Good Idea. Events will include “A Defense of the Less Good Idea” featuring a talk by William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace and three short form works, “Unsettled Voices at The Broad” with related works taking place as a part of Getty’s “PST ART: Art & Science Collide” that includes an exhibit and a Los Angeles reforestation project, and five performances of the chamber opera “The Great Yes, The Great No,” at The Wallis.

Phala Ookeditse Phala and Nhlanhla Mahlangu’s “The Great Yes, The Great No,” tells of the 1941 historic escape from Vichy France on a cargo ship from Marseille to Martinique by surrealist André Breton, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam, communist novelist Victor Serge, and author Anna Seghers, among others. In this production Kentridge uses South African choral music, dance, poetry and anti-rational approaches to language and image.

Robert van Leer, Executive Director & CEO of The Wallis said, “’The Great Yes, The Great No’ at The Wallis offers a kaleidoscopic journey that encompasses the complex issues that define our time. William Kentridge is a visionary artist whose work resonates globally and transcends boundaries. Seeing ‘The Great Yes, The Great No’ workshopped last year I knew we had to share this with our Los Angeles Community. It is a powerful reminder of the role art plays in shaping both our collective memory and our future.”

With these presentations, the goal is to find the less good idea by creating and supporting these kinds of experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts projects. Kentridge said in a press release, “The Centre is a long-term test of a strategy for making art and making meaning. Is it a viable way of finding understanding, of constructing meaning, or simply a way of making art?”

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