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)
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.
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 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/