interview with william kentridge on his 'self portrait as a coffee pot' film series

William Kentridge discusses his film series with mubi

South African artist William Kentridge teams up with global film distributor and streaming platform MUBI to release his nine-episode film series Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot. Shot in Kentridge’s Johannesburg studio during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the series draws inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, Dziga Vertov, and the innovative spirit of early cinema. Through a collection of distinct yet interconnected vignettes, it explores themes of humor, philosophy, politics, and artistic freedom—showcasing the resilience of creativity amidst isolation. ‘I wanted to make the films in the same way I would create a drawing,’ Kentridge explains in an interview with designboom, ‘without a script, following the impulse, letting the process unfold naturally.’

Following special previews at the Toronto International Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival, and a presentation at the Arsenale Institute for the Politics of Representation during the 2024 Venice Biennale, the series will be available on MUBI starting October 18, 2024.

Episode 3 – Vanishing Points | all images courtesy of William Kentridge and MUBI

Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot: intimate insights into creation

Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot, a multimedia project combining hand-drawn animation, collage, performance, music, and dialogues with collaborators and doppelgängers, invites viewers into Johannesburg-based William Kentridge’s studio. Through this creative process, the series offers an intimate look at how art is made and understood from the perspective of culture, history, politics, and contemporary life. In October 2024, the series will debut with a three-day event at Hauser & Wirth’s 18th Street gallery in New York. This happening will showcase the films, allowing audiences to experience the work in an interactive setting.

Marking a significant moment for the art and streaming industries, Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot represents the first collaboration between the gallery world and MUBI. In a groundbreaking move, the platform has secured exclusive global streaming rights to the serialized work of art, a limited edition of which is also available for acquisition through the artist’s galleries

William Kentridge teams up with MUBI to release his nine-episode film series

interview with William Kentridge

designboom (DB): What inspired the title Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot, and how does it reflect the themes explored in the series?

William Kentridge (WK): Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot was originally called Studio Light. But gradually, as the series developed over the three years of its making, it became clear that it was much more of an autobiographical viewpoint into what happens in the studio. The series began in the first month of lockdown. I’d had an idea for a series of films about the studio but never had a clear space to make them for a couple of years. When the first lockdown happened in March 2020, I thought it was a good time, alone in the studio, to start working. So initially, there was one studio assistant who was living at a house, who was in the bubble with us, and so the two of us made it together. He did the camera work, the sound work, everything. And that was me working in the studio on my own. Insofar as discussing anything it meant, I discussed it with myself. And this, which started as one component of the series, became the dominant form—that it’s my voice in conversation with myself through it.

Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot was shot in Kentridge’s studio during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

DB: The series features a conversation between two versions of yourself. What was the intention behind this dialogue, and how does it enhance the narrative?

WK: The intention behind the dialogue was really to try to capture the divide itself that we all have. It’s very clear in the studio—the split of your subjectivity as an artist, between the person, that part of you that is busy making the work at the coalface, so to speak, and that part of you that steps back and takes a look at what it is you have made. It’s not to say it’s a unique capacity or a unique thing that happens to artists. I’m sure it happens to everyone, but it’s very evident in the studio. That became the start of the separation. We very often have conversations in our own heads between different selves. Should I go out? Yes, let’s go out. No, I’m ready to stay home. Let’s stay home. And so that dichotomy is played out in the series.

the series draws inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, Dziga Vertov, and the innovative spirit of early cinema

DB: Can you share your creative process while developing this series, especially in the context of working in your studio during the pandemic?

WK: I started with a few broad themes. I knew I wanted to look at colonialism. I wanted to look at translation from medium to medium. I was interested in landscape, portraiture, and questions of mortality and fate. So I had these as broad headings, but then within each episode, there was never a script written. On the morning when I was going to do a conversation, I’d make some notes in a notebook, and I’d film the first self saying the lines of that first self, and then film myself again, trying to remember what the first person had said and fitting it in, and relying on the skill of the editors to make it feel like a natural conversation. So the practice of the studio is very much one of following the impulse of drawing a gesture or an image. I wanted to try to make the films in the same way—without a script in advance, not with any shooting script. Because it was filmed in the studio over a long period, I might shoot for a day, have a conversation, and then do some editing, and then a day later say, ‘Ah, this was a drawing that was needed, that could come into it,’ and work on that, which would suggest other elements. It was very much the way one would work if one was making a drawing or an animation—trying to see if those techniques of constructions and those strategies would work with a long form as they might for a three- or two-minute film.

through a collection of interconnected vignettes, the series explores humor, philosophy, and politics

DB: This series marks a significant moment in the intersection of fine art and streaming platforms. How do you see this changing the landscape for visual artists?

WK: The series was always intended for streaming. In a way, that’s a new way of being able to look at film material, particularly long-form film material. This is a four-and-a-half-hour project. Initially, it was about eight hours, but we edited it down to nine, approximately half-hour episodes, with the view that, the way streaming is, A) it can spread widely, and B) it can find its audience across a wide area rather than needing to get a huge audience, which a normal broadcast television would need to justify spending four and a half hours looking at one artist’s studio. Here, if there are people in different parts of the world over different times, it still adds up to a sufficient audience that makes it worthwhile for any kind of distribution. The idea is you could either watch one episode at a time, or if you so choose, binge-watch and watch several at the same time. Also, they would not just be shown once, as they might be on broadcast television but are there as a resource for students, for teachers, for anyone who’s interested in what happens inside the studio. I certainly hope that the flexibility of streaming platforms makes it possible for films that would otherwise be seen as too niche, too limited in general appeal, with too low a body count that aren’t celebrity documentaries—that the streaming platforms would make it possible for this kind of work to be seen, and that is to say, to give encouragement for this kind of work to be made.

showcasing the resilience of creativity amidst isolation

DB: What do you hope audiences take away from Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot?

WK: I don’t really have a specific answer for what I want people to take away from it. I suppose, to understand the openness of the studio, the stupidity of the studio, the stupid actions one undertakes, not knowing what they might mean, but made with the confidence that some meaning will emerge. And in the end, it will show you who you are, even if you’re just drawing a coffee pot or a vase of flowers. In the end, that drawing, the action, the nature of it, is also a kind of description of the self, which is to say, a self-portrait.

the series will be available on MUBI starting October 18, 2024