William Kentridge

A Natural History of the Studio

1 May – 1 August

New York, 18th Street

‘Printmaking…became a medium in which I could think, not merely a medium to make a picture... it has not been an adjunct to my other activities, but in many ways, it has been a central thread that has gone through the work I have done in the studio over the last 40 years.’

William Kentridge

‘A Natural History of the Studio’ extends to Hauser & Wirth’s nearby 18th Street location with a selection of nearly thirty prints made by Kentridge over the last two decades. The artist first began printmaking while a student at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the medium has been integral to his practice ever since. Kentridge has experimented with a broad range of techniques in this realm, from etching to lithography, aquatint, drypoint, photogravure and woodcut, observing that, ‘Printmaking…became a medium in which I could think, not merely a medium to make a picture... it has not been an adjunct to my other activities, but in many ways, it has been a central thread that has gone through the work I have done in the studio over the last 40 years.’

Many of the works on view at 18th Street revisit familiar personal iconography or directly reference other milestone projects, including the films on view at 22nd Street. The image of a typewriter, for example, dominates four print variations on view and is used as a metaphor for communication, historical record-keeping, and bureaucratic authority. Produced with master printmaker Mark Attwood in 2012 and given such titles as ‘The Full Stop Swallows the Sentence’ and ‘Undo Unsay,’ these works on paper are directly connected to Kentridge’s film ‘The Refusal of Time’ (2012), a thirty-minute meditation on time and space, the complex legacies of colonialism and industry, and the artist’s own intellectual life.

A series of lithographs titled ‘Portraits for Shostakovich’ (2022) was inspired by a 52-minute film made to accompany live performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10. Titled ‘Oh To Believe in Another World’ (2022), that project also serves as the subject of episode 8 of ‘Self-Portrait of a Coffee Pot.’ These colorful prints feature fractured portraits of Soviet intellectuals, members of the cultural avant-garde like the playwright and poet Mayakovsky, and politicians such as Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.

The presentation at 18th Street also includes four self-portraits. Made in collaboration with Jillian Ross Print in 2023, these works employ photogravure, drypoint, and hand-painting techniques with collaged elements of photographs, drawings, and fragments of text – an approach that in its insistent layering evokes the construction of self and identity as a continual work in process, intertwined with and shaped by socio-political forces.

Also on view at New York, 22nd Street

Spanning two floors of the gallery’s 22nd Street building, ‘A Natural History of the Studio’ also extends to the gallery’s 18th Street location with a concise survey of Kentridge’s printmaking practice.

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About the Artist

William Kentridge

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. His practice has parsed and questioned the historical record—responding to the past as it ineluctably shapes the present—and created a world within his art that both mirrors and shadows the inequities and absurdities of our own. By employing varied mediums, Kentridge seeks to construct meaning through the use of historical resources, including maps, language and everyday imagery, while always maintaining a space for contradiction and uncertainty.

Kentridge’s work has been seen in museums and galleries around the world since his first survey exhibition in 1998 at Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, including the Albertina Museum (Vienna), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Turin), Johannesburg Art Gallery, Kunstmuseum Basel, Louisiana Museum (Humlebaek), Musée du Louvre (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Norval Foundation (Cape Town), Royal Academy of Arts (London), Whitechapel Gallery (London) and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Cape Town). He has participated a number of times in documenta (Kassel) (2012, 2002, 1997) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2005, 1999), as well as the Sydney Biennale (2008) and the Istanbul Biennale (1995, 2015).

Kentridge’s opera productions began in 2005 with Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute,’ which embarked on an international tour of opera houses after opening at La Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium. Subsequent productions include Shostakovich’s ‘The Nose’ and Alban Berg’s operas ‘Lulu’ and ‘Wozzeck,’ and have been seen at opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera (New York), La Scala (Milan), English National Opera (London), Opera de Lyon, Amsterdam Opera, the Sydney Opera House, as well as the KUNSTENFESTIVALDESARTS (Brussels) and the Salzburger Festspiele. Kentridge’s film, ‘Oh To Believe in Another World,’ made to accompany the performance of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, premiered at KKL Luzern in 2022 and has since been performed in theaters and at festivals worldwide.

Kentridge’s theatrical productions, performed in theatres and at festivals across the globe, include ‘Waiting for the Sibyl’ (2019), ‘The Head & the Load’ (2018), ‘Ursonate’ (2017), ‘Winterreise’ (2014), ‘Paper Music’ (2014), ‘Refuse the Hour’ (2011) and, in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, ‘Il Ritorno d’Ulisse’ (1998), ‘Ubu & the Truth Commission’ (1997), ‘Faustus in Africa!’ (1995) and ‘Woyzeck on the Highveld’ (1992).

In 2016, Kentridge founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg: a space for responsive thinking and making through experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts practices. The center hosts an ongoing program of workshops, public performances and mentorship activities.

Kentridge is the recipient of honorary doctorates from several universities including Yale, University of London and Columbia University. In 2010, he received the Kyoto Prize. In 2012, he was awarded the Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and he presented the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. In 2015, he was appointed an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy in London. In 2017, he received the Princesa de Asturias Award for the arts and, in 2018, the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize. In 2019, he received the Praemium Imperiale award in painting in Tokyo. In 2021, he was made a Foreign Associate Member to the French Académie des Beaux Arts, Paris. In 2022, he was presented the Ordine della Stella d’Italia and, in 2023, he received the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera in London. As the Slade Professor of Fine Art for 2023/2024, Kentridge delivered a series of six lectures at the University of Oxford in January and February 2024.

His work can be found in the collections of public and private museums including Amorepacific Museum of Art (Seoul), Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth), Art Institute of Chicago, Broad Art Foundation (Los Angeles), Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Turin), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Fondation Cartier (Paris), Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), Fundaçion Sorigue (Lerida), Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Haus der Kunst (Munich), ICA Boston, Israel Museum (Jerusalem), JAG (Johannesburg), Kunsthalle Mannheim, Kunsthalle Praha (Prague), Kunstmuseum Basel, LACMA (Los Angeles), Louisiana Museum (Humlebaek), Luma Foundation (Arles), MAC (Montreal), MAXXI (Rome), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), MoCA (Los Angeles), MUDAM (Luxembourg), MoMA (New York), Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest), National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Norval Foundation (Cape Town), San Diego Museum of Art, SFMoMA (San Francisco), Sharjah Art Foundation, Sifang Art Museum (Nanjing), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Tate (London), Vehbi Koç Foundation (Istanbul) and Zeitz MOCAA (Cape Town), as well as private collections worldwide.

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