New York Photographs

My New York photographs are ready from the lab (Analogue Wonderland). I have re-fallen in love with my 35mm film camera, a Fujica STX-1. I bought it almost 30 years ago when I was doing my art foundation course, inspired by Tim Rundle, now a Principal Lecturer at Nottingham School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University, one of the most inspiring and influential individuals of my career.

For my trip I used Kodak Ultramax 400. I did some research into colour photography and particularly liked Saul Leiter, whose work I hadn’t encountered before. A lot of very flat, almost two-dimensional colour photographs that have a strong composition and layout and almost feel like paintings. I also really like Joel Meyerowitz’s work. This link is colour street photography. The quality, colour and composition are all really evocative.

I took most of my photographs on the Brooklyn Bridge. I was there on my last day, by chance it was golden hour, the light was amazing and all of the photographs, both on film and on my iPhone have a particular quality, which I’d never really understood but is what makes golden hour warm and special. I also have an almost identical photograph of Rodin’s The Thinker from Columbia University, even the focus is the same.

Brooklyn Bridge, 2025. Photo: Sara Nesteruk

 

Brooklyn Bridge, 2025. Photo: Sara Nesteruk 

Brooklyn Bridge, 2025. Photo: Sara Nesteruk

 

 ‘The Thinker’ by Rodin. Photo: Sara Nesteruk

 

A Natural History of the Studio

 

This is a current exhibition of work by William Kentridge. Kentridge’s work includes drawing, erasing, collage, film, performance, music and theatre. He was born in South Africa and grew up under apartheid. His work explores the past and its relationship to the present using tactile forms of production, raw animation techniques and the artist’s studio as a way to describe process, perception and reality. (1)

 

 Figure 1. Pocket Drawings 187–241, 2016. By William Kentridge. Photo: author. 

Figure 2. News from Nowhere (detail), 2007. By William Kentridge. Photo: author.


The exhibition is at Hauser & Wirth in two buildings at 18th Street and 22nd Street New York. A Natural History of the Studio explores printmaking in the first gallery venue and in the second a dynamic, stunning show across two floors of the gallery space. On 22nd Street the focus is a piece of working including production materials, drawing, film and sculpture.

 

Figure 3. Drawing for Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot (Mine Dump), 2020. By William Kentridge. Photo: author.



Figure 4. Drawings for Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot, 2020. By William Kentridge. Photo: author.


The focus is on Kentridge’s lockdown work completed in 2024, Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot. This is an acclaimed series of nine, thirty-minute episodes shot in his studio. The work explores process and is a portrait of a particular moment in the artist’s experience and practice. It includes collage, drawing and video footage of the artist himself. As with many of Kentridge’s works the artist reveals time in a tactile, tangible way through stop-motion animation, drawing and a mix of production techniques that result in a raw, uncomplicated final outcome. The second floor of the gallery includes single screen animation work and sculpture. 

Figure 5. Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot gallery installation. By William Kentridge. Photo: author.



Figure 6. Fugitive Words, 2024. By William Kentridge. Photo: author.

1. “William Kentridge,” Hauser & Wirth, accessed 9 June, 2025, https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/william-kentridge/