During the mentoring year William Kentridge hopes to be able to show Mateo López how his work can expand and flower. For López, Kentridge’s willingness to share his work space presents an extraordinary opportunity. “Talk is important, but the possibility of someone to work with is better,” he says.

Mateo López is a highly skilled and imaginative artist who bases his work solidly on drawing, like his Mentor William Kentridge. López has already created several enigmatic works that show his aptitude and originality. Here he explains why his work, not his personal life, must come first in the mentoring year.

I’m a shy person, perhaps that’s why I’m drawing, because it’s an introspective process. Drawing transforms ideas onto paper. Being shy is not a problem for an artist. I prefer to be recognized for my work rather than my personality.

It is important to ask yourself all the time what you are doing. You don't need to be part of every exhibition that you're invited to, don’t overexpose your work.Sometimes drawing is like writing: you are using few elements – it is you and a piece of paper.

I aim for a narration in my work that describes the process of creation with a thread that connects one project with another. The view of a drawing recalls another drawing. It can include a drawing that is mistake. In this way it is biographical, but not in the sense of going back on your own story.

I try to involve the creative process in my work that describes the process of creation with a thread that connects one project with another. The view of a drawing recalls another drawing. It can include a drawing that is mistake. In this way it is biographical, but not in the sense of going back on your own story.

I keep a sketchbook in my pocket where I make notes. Drawings that I want to make. It’s like an image bank.

When I was invited to apply to the Rolex Arts Initiative, I started making the video I was required to submit with my application. I thought: “I don’t want to be in front of a camera, I prefer that my works talk about my artistic practice.” So my drawing became a kind of character in the video, with moods, mistakes, achievements. I decided not to appear in front of the camera, so when I did appear it was a drawing of me.

The first meeting with the mentor, William Kentridge, when he was deciding whom to choose as his Protégé, was really friendly. I was in a panic, in front of a big artist. But he is a really kind person and he made things go easily. He didn’t want to get into a deep conversation. He was more interested in doing things together, drawing at the same time, using the tools he works with. I was very happy as that’s the way I work. Talk is important, but the possibility of someone to work with is better. That made me calmer, more relaxed.

When I was at art school, Kentridge was one of the artists who appeared in many catalogues and magazines. I was interested in his work because his body of work is concentrated on drawings.

Another thing that interested me was the theme of his work – he is talking about his own context, apartheid and the recent history of South Africa.

The main thing I will get from the year of mentoring is to gain confidence and to see my work in different ways and open myself to possibilities. Not to do the same thing as my Mentor. He told me: “I’m not here to teach you how to draw, just to let you see your work from a new angle.”

I like this idea of a more traditional way of learning, as they did centuries ago – you are invited to work in an artist’s studio to help your mentor to work, learning different ways to approach the visual experience.

I hope that everything that happens in the mentorship is good for my work, not necessarily for me. My focus is meeting with William Kentridge rather than with getting attention for myself. I want to be concentrated on what is real. I don’t care about being in the mainstream.

I’m both happy and nervous about the mentoring year. I’m just an ordinary guy who organizes as he goes along. Now, as part of the mentorship, I will visit Documenta in Germany, where William Kentridge has an installation, The Refusal of Time, as well as see a performance of his latest work in Amsterdam, Refuse the Hour, in June. The performance is a collaboration with a choreographer and musician. There is also an exhibition of Kentridge’s work in Brazil and a visit to South Africa. Rolex will help organize the travel. It’s completely new to me.

It’s hard to say who is the greatest artist ever, as a lot of good artists do not get recognized. It depends who tells the story. Whether it’s from western or eastern culture or north or south. Marcel Duchamp is one of my favourites but here are a lot of good artists in Colombia and South America.

It’s difficult to know the future, so I can’t say what I’ll be doing in five years. I have an artist friend from Colombia, called Jose Antonio Suarez Londoño who repeatedly writes on his drawings: “Hacer siempre lo mismo y hacerlo siempre distinto.” This means: “Always do the same and do it differently always.” I think I will be drawing, but differently.

Opening up to others

The true value of collaborating with leading South African artist William Kentridge, says protégé Mateo López, will become fully apparent only in the years to come.

Rolex Arts Initiative: You once said you aim for a narration in your work, a process of creation that connects one process with another. Can you see a storyline in this mentoring process?
Mateo López: Absolutely. The beginning of this story is when I was working as an artist on my own. Then there’s the middle of the tale with the mentorship in which I discover and learn many new things. And, finally, although this particular story is due to finish in 2013, I’m sure it won’t end there. It’s rather like a journey of happenstance where you meet someone on the road who introduces you to someone else, and they in turn introduce you to another individual. Then a world of opportunities opens up. This narrative is taking me in many directions.

Are you sketching this narrative?
Not exactly sketching, but certainly taking notes and picking up souvenirs from travelling around. I’m collecting samples of the different places and situations and impressions of the people I’ve met, such as: a piece of notepaper from a Rolex meeting, a paper coaster from under a drink in a bar, airline tickets. I’m documenting the experience. It’s a narration through objects and images. There’s been a wealth of inspiration. I can already see that some of these objects will play a part in some way in a future work of art.

What have you learned from the mentoring process so far?
Many opportunities have already opened up to me. And so much new information has come my way that it’s not measurable. I feel it will be only after the event, many years down the line perhaps, that I’ll look back, reflect and be able to absorb it all. Only then will I be able to describe in concrete terms: “I learned this then, or I learned that here.” But I am gaining more confidence in my own work.

What has impressed you about your mentor’s way of working?
During a rehearsal for one of Mr Kentridge’s performances [of a multi-media work, Refuse The Hour] in Amsterdam, I observed intently the way he worked with a team of nearly 20 people on the project. Everything was perfectly synchronized and planned. So I started seeing how it was possible to create collaborations with people – an important experience for me. I was accustomed to working alone in my studio, concentrating and obsessively working on my drawings. Then, after watching Mr Kentridge at work, I realized I could open up to working with others. This has already manifested itself in a recent work of mine in Bogotá with a bookbinder, a carpenter and a sound producer.

How does the experience differ from learning elsewhere?
It’s good to get out and see art being practised outside an academic institution. There are many fine art teachers and professors in Colombia, but much of the teaching is theoretic and conceptual. This mentoring is not unlike the kind of apprenticeship the Old Masters used to offer, and it’s very valuable. Perhaps this is something more art institutions could think about. For example, pairing up working artists with students, rather than them being in the classroom all the time.

You recently went to Boston with William Kentridge.
Going to hear Mr Kentridge speak at the Norton lectures in Boston was a real privilege. These lectures are of an extremely high calibre. Away from the lecture hall, we simply wandered around the campus and discussed many things. Although I can maintain a conversation in English, sometimes, when the conversation goes deeper, it’s harder for me to express what I’m trying to say. But I feel with Mr Kentridge, it doesn’t matter, because we can communicate visually. I recently sent him some images from my recent exhibition in Bogotá, and he replied by email with some really poetic, insightful thoughts. He’d looked at my work with a keen eye and his comments were very helpful.

He also took me to see the Glass Flowers exhibition at Harvard. It’s a huge reproduction of flowers from around the world, created in glass. Mr Kentridge had seen it before, and he thought I would like it. I certainly did, as it was intriguing. We also went to see a vast collection of stones and minerals at the Mineralogical Museum. We marvelled at the incredible colours of some of the stones and talked about them together.

What are you looking forward to in the next few months?
There’s no specific goal or project. But I’ve already been inspired to try working with other forms of art, such as when I worked with sound in my recent exhibition. Mr Kentridge was then able to comment on it and offer his opinion. I’m also thinking about working with animation or experimenting with the formats of books. I can see there’s going to be lots of new and different work on the horizon.

Prev Chapter Next Chapter

Featuring
William Kentridge and Mateo López