talks
July 2025
In Conversation: The prints of William Kentridge with Judy Hecker, Jillian Ross & Leora Maltz-Leca
1 July 2025
Hauser & Wirth
New York
On the occasion of the exhibition William Kentridge. A Natural History of the Studio, and to celebrate the release of Ursula magazine’s new Summer issue, please join us for a conversation about printmaking, process, and metaphor in Kentridge’s prints with Judy Hecker, the executive director of Print Center New York; Jillian Ross, master printer; and Leora Maltz-Leca, professor of contemporary art history at RISD.
For his inaugural exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York, Kentridge presents his acclaimed nine-episode film series Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot and more than forty-five drawings integral to the film’s creation, alongside a group of sculptural works. The immersive installation occupies two floors of the gallery’s 22nd Street building.
Running concurrently with the exhibition at 22nd street is a selection of the artist’s prints—representing many bodies of work made over the last two decades—on view at the gallery’s dedicated editions space on 18th Street.
Coinciding with these presentations, Ursula features an essay in the new issue by Judy Hecker about printmaking, experimental performance, and the process of ‘thinking aloud’ in Kentridge’s work.
Process and Making
William Kentridge works with a range of print studios and collaborators, each bringing their own unique way of developing a print or series of prints together in etching, lithography, photogravure and relief. This includes the use of different papers for chine collé and collage, while pushing the boundaries of technique and exploring color. During the talk we will be discussing some of these methods used in the making of these limited edition prints.
William Kentridge (b.1955, South Africa) is internationally acclaimed for his artworks and his theater and opera productions. His method combines drawing and erasing, tearing, gestural painting, collage, writing, film, performance, music, theater, with collaborative practices in print, sculpture and tapestry to create works of art that are grounded in politics, science, literature, and history and yet maintains a space for contradiction and uncertainty.
His largest UK survey to date was held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2022.
Kentridge’s work is held in major art collections including MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi; and Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town.
William Kentridge
How To Explain Who I Was
2025
Photographs by Sachy N. Mital, courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Judy Hecker is executive director of Print Center New York. Previously, she co-organized ‘William Kentridge: Five Themes’ at MoMA (2010) and authored ‘William Kentridge: Trace.’ Prints from The Museum of Modern Art’ (2010). Her article ‘Testing Hypotheses: Performance, Process and Printmaking in the Art of William Kentridge’ appears in the Summer 2025 issue of Ursula.
Jillian Ross is a master printer who ran David Krut Workshop in Johannesburg for nearly 20 years, where she became one of Kentridge’s primary print collaborators. In 2021, she founded Jillian Ross Print (JRP), a collaborative print studio and publisher in Saskatoon, Canada working primarily with Canadian and South African artists, including Kentridge.
Leora Maltz-Leca, born and raised in Durban, South Africa, Leora Maltz-Leca is the author of 'William Kentridge: Process as Metaphor and Other Doubtful Enterprises' (2018). She is a professor of global contemporary art history at RISD and director of RISD’s global arts and culture program.
Ursula is a quarterly magazine published by Hauser & Wirth, that celebrates the artistic achievement and creativity of the gallery's artists and those beyond. Through the printed magazine, digital content platform and live programs, Ursula champions artistic practices that challenge and interrogate the future, highlighting a diverse range of contemporary culture that Hauser & Wirth finds compelling. Featuring stories from the worlds of art, design, film, books, food, and sustainability, Ursula invites readers to think critically, ask questions, and engage with the ideas shaping our world. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, Ursula appeals to a broad, inquisitive readership, from dedicated insiders to curious observers. ‘It has always been our mission to make the gallery a home for our artists where other thinkers, writers, and visionaries can also gather and engage,’ gallery President Iwan Wirth told Artnet News. ‘Now Ursula will be an editorial home as well, a truly global magazine that reflects our philosophy.’