Artist: William Kentridge

For his inaugural exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York, William Kentridge presents his acclaimed nine-episode film series ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot’ and more than forty-five drawings integral to its creation alongside a group of sculptural works. This immersive installation will occupy two floors of the gallery’s 22nd Street building and is the first time the drawings from the film series will be on view to the public. Transforming the first floor into a space evocative of the artist’s own working environment and highlighting the integral relationship between drawing and sculpture throughout the second floor, ‘A Natural History of the Studio’ invites visitors to step into Kentridge’s creative process and explore the complex ways in which his work reveals truths about the ways we think, live and relate to one another.

This presentation follows special previews of ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot’ at the Toronto International Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. The complete series of films was first seen in an installation curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice, at the time of the 2024 Venice Biennale. To celebrate the opening of the exhibition, Hauser & Wirth Publishers will release a striking new artist book that renders the essence of the films through dialogue and still images from the series. Kentridge will also show a selection of prints––representing many bodies of work made over the last two decades––at the gallery’s dedicated editions space on 18th Street.

William Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his artworks, theater and opera productions. His method combines drawing and erasing, tearing, gestural painting, collage, weaving, casting, writing, film, performance, music, theater and collaborative practices to create works of art that are grounded in politics, science, literature and history, yet maintain a space for contradiction and uncertainty.

Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he currently lives and works, Kentridge grew up under the pall of apartheid.