Ink Rats
Current Events
Solo exhibition
A Natural History of the Studio
May 1 – August 1, 2025
Hauser & Wirth
22nd Street and 18th Street, New York
Forthcoming Events
A sporadic record of what happens in the studio, in video, words and images
📣 NOW OPEN 📣
“Listen to the Echo”
Museum Folkwang, Essen
4 September, 2025 - 18 January, 2026
A retrospective encompassing five decades of work, including drawings, film, prints, sculpture and tapestries.
Part of a joint exhibition which spans the cities of Essen (Museum Folkwang) and Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: Albertinum, Kupferstich Kabinett and Puppentheatersammlung at Kraftwerk Mitte)
Exhibition design by @sabine.theunissen
A disobedient reflection
Outtake from Episode 2 of “Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot” featuring @suepamgrant_studiogalleryspg.3
OPENING TONIGHT IN SPOLETO 📣
“The Great Yes, The Great No”
Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti
June 12 & 13, 2025
A chamber opera by William Kentridge, performed as part of the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi
Video 1 - Interlude from “The Great Yes, The Great No” featuring the surrealist figure in a skirt
Performed by @chauke_thulani
Video by Dûsko Marović SASC
Video 2 - The evolution of the surrealist figure in a skirt:
Shown first in puppet form, as manipulated by @chauke_thulani in front of a green screen during filming for “Oh To Believe in Another World” (2022) and then performed in costume for the film by the same actor.
Video by Dûsko Marović SASC
“The Great Yes, The Great No”
Creative Team
Concept | Director: William Kentridge
Associate Directors: Nhlanhla Mahlangu | Phala O. Phala
Choral Composer: Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Music Director: Tlale Makhene
Dramaturg: Mwenya Kabwe
Costume Design: Greta Goiris
Set Design: Sabine Theunissen
Lighting Design: Urs Schönebaum | Elena Gui
Projection Editing | Compositing: Žana Marović | Janus Fouché | Joshua Trappler
Cinematography: Duško Marović
Video Control: Kim Gunning
Performed and created by
Performers: Xolisile Bongwana, Hamilton Dhlamini, William Harding, Tony Miyambo, Nancy Nkusi, Neil McCarthy
Dancers: Thulani Chauke & Teresa Phuti Mojela
Chorus: Anathi Conjwa, Asanda Hanabe, Zandile Hlatshwayo, Khokho Madlala, Nokuthula Magubane, Mapule Moloi,Nomathamsanqa Ngoma
Musicians: Marika Hughes (Cello), Nathan Koci (Accordion | Banjo), Tlale Makhene (Percussion), Thandi Ntuli (Piano)
Text excerpts in libretto: Bertolt Brecht, André Breton, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, Frantz Fanon and others
Produced by
Produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film
A project of the Centre for the Less Good Idea
Toured in partnership with Quaternaire
Lead commissioner LUMA Foundation, Arles FRANCE
Co-producers: Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (LU), Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen (GE), Spoleto Festival Dei Due Mondi (IT)
Rotating drawings for Orfeo
OPENING TONIGHT IN RECKLINGHAUSEN
“The Great Yes, The Great No”
German premiere at Ruhrfestspiele
Ruhrfestspielhaus Großes Haus
June 6 - 8, 2025
A chamber opera by William Kentridge
Creative team
Concept | Director: William Kentridge
Associate Directors: Nhlanhla Mahlangu | Phala O. Phala
Choral Composer: Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Music Director: Tlale Makhene
Dramaturg: Mwenya Kabwe
Costume Design: Greta Goiris
Set Design: Sabine Theunissen
Lighting Design: Urs Schönebaum | Elena Gui
Projection Editing | Compositing: Žana Marović | Janus Fouché | Joshua Trappler
Cinematography: Duško Marović
Video Control: Kim Gunning
Performed and created by
Performers: Xolisile Bongwana, Hamilton Dhlamini, William Harding, Tony Miyambo, Nancy Nkusi, Neil McCarthy
Dancers: Thulani Chauke & Teresa Phuti Mojela
Chorus: Anathi Conjwa, Asanda Hanabe, Zandile Hlatshwayo, Khokho Madlala, Nokuthula Magubane, Mapule Moloi,Nomathamsanqa Ngoma
Musicians: Marika Hughes (Cello), Nathan Koci (Accordion | Banjo), Tlale Makhene (Percussion), Thandi Ntuli (Piano)
Text excerpts in libretto: Bertolt Brecht, André Breton, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, Frantz Fanon and others
Produced by
Produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film
A project of the Centre for the Less Good Idea
Toured in partnership with Quaternaire
Lead commissioner LUMA Foundation, Arles FRANCE
Co-commissioners Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami-Dade County USA with lead sponsor support from Adrienne Arsht, CAL Performances, Berkeley USA, Centre D’art Battat, Montreal CA, The Wallis Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, USA
Foundational commissioning support for the development and creation of The Great Yes, The Great No is provided by Brown Arts Institute at Brown University, USA
“The Great Yes, The Great No” acknowledges the kind assistance of Goodman Gallery, Lia Rumma Gallery and Hauser & Wirth in this project and generous support from The Roy Cockrum Foundation.
Co-producers: Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (LU), Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen (GE), Spoleto Festival Dei Due Mondi (IT)
Image: Monika Ritterhaus
Idiosyncratic lines of enquiry into particular aspects of studio practice or bodies of work
William Kentridge: Creative Machines
William Kentridge puts to use a diversity of ‘creative machines’ in making work. He methodologically rethinks drawing, as an unfinished process, a means of collecting and generating iconography, with the aim of maximizing narrative amplitude that goes beyond the limits of graphic representation by resorting to sound and cinematography.
Stumbling to Utopia
“Why continue with these gestures, with these drawings, these words, in the face of their imminent failure? Because without some idea of utopia, of a rescued world implicit not just in these gestures but in the act of making a drawing, a performance, a speech – without this we feel a gap, a hollow.” WK, 2016
Listening to the Trees
An anecdotal account of the making of the book “Waiting for the Sibyl” and a consideration of Kentridge’s ongoing series of tree drawings, by book designer Oliver Barstow
9 WORDS and one more
Making art is a uniquely human endeavour and an artist, the maker of art, is someone who distills what they feel and think about the world and expresses this visually. This requires one to read, to see, to listen, to feel, to question and be curious; to know, and yet to doubt; to have humility and to be brave.
All so different from what you expected
Things which are obvious in studio practice, like uncertainty, doubt, provisionality, are not about the COVID pandemic. They are themes I have worked on for many years – but these themes in the outside world have become much more present in these months.
Cursive
Cursive is the third set in a series of small bronze glyphs, following “Lexicon” (2017) and “Paragraph II” (2018). The glyphs started as a collection of ink drawings and paper cut-outs, each on a single page from a dictionary.
