William Kentridge reimagines his film series ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot’ through text and image in this striking artist’s book.
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.
‘William Kentridge: Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot’ (2025)
Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers
The body is always a metaphor or, rather, a series of metaphors. It’s always trying to find out how to show what you can see and that which you can’t see, but know.
William Kentridge
The nine episodes have become the nine chapters of the publication, extensively illustrated with stills from the films and the complete script of each episode. Featuring exquisite special features such as tipped-in drawings and transparent interleaves, as well as a beautiful three-quarter jacket surrounding a linen cover, this book brings the vivid materiality of the artist’s studio into the hands of the reader.
Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot is a study of our bodily experience and self-perception in the digital age, as well as an insight to the artist’s innermost thoughts during periods of isolation. Shot in Kentridge’s Johannesburg studio in South Africa amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, and completed in 2024, it is a testament to a solitary artist deeply immersed in self-reflection. Kentridge enters a rich dialogue with his alter egos—one taking the role of the optimist and the other the pessimist—hashing out questions of art, work, memory, history, and time in magnitudes ranging from the intimate to the universal. Meandering from humorous exchanges to serious personal reflections, these conversations can be interpreted as forms of quiet psychoanalysis and offer readers an insight into the artist’s mind.
Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers
Kentridge’s film series ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot’ is available to view on the streaming service MUBI.
‘William Kentridge. A Natural History of the Studio’ is on view at Hauser & Wirth, 22nd Street and 18th Street from 1 May – 1 August 2025.
About William Kentridge
William Kentridge (born Johannesburg, South Africa, 1955) is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre, and opera productions. His method combines drawing, writing, film, performance, music, theatre, 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. Kentridge’s work has been seen in museums and galleries around the world and can be found in the collections of public and private museums as well as private collections worldwide.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: SELF-PORTRAIT AS A COFFEE POT
English
Hardcover with three quarter jacket
17.4 × 23.6 CM, 836pp
978-3-907493-12-0
£90.00 / $115.00 / €100.00
Text by William Kentridge
Edited by Karen Marta
©2025 Hauser & Wirth
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