Kentridge’s explorations of the human self can result in multiple insights, and contradictions. Often in his video series multiple Kentridges or doppelgängers argue and disagree on ideas, methods and even memories. (These videos are influenced by his engagement with the world of theater, and at the Hauser & Wirth show they are displayed in a corner of the gallery emulating his studio.) Because the artist draws mostly with charcoal, the notions of erasure, overwriting and haziness in the paintings are heightened, making it plausible to debate and even dispute everything.

This new artist’s book from Hauser & Wirth Publishers is a translation into book form of South African artist William Kentridge’s film series Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot, which premiered at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice, during the 2024 Venice Biennale. In the nine-episode series, Kentridge employs a multidisciplinary approach—combining film with performance, collage, drawing, and music—to investigate the relationship between thinking and artistic creation and is a reflection on what might happen in the studio—and in the brain—of an artist today.

This month, audiences in South Korea will once again encounter the haunting, layered world of the South African artist known for collapsing the boundaries between drawing, film, music and performance. William Kentridge, whose diverse works have previously been showcased at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, the Asia Culture Center and the Amorepacific Museum of Art, returns to Seoul with two of his recent works under the GS Arts Center’s Artists series: "Sibyl," and multimedia symphonic project “Shostakovich 10: Oh To Believe in Another World” (2024).