Words: A Collation

An exploration of phrases and excerpts that inspire a major contemporary artist.

Over the past several years, renowned South African artist William Kentridge has made a collection of particular phrases and sentences that have called out to him from the pages of whatever he has been reading. And these phrases, which he has written into a studio notebook titled Words, have been put to work in many of his artistic projects. Kentridge has often begun a project by paging through the notebook, waiting for a phrase to claim its place in the new work. The text excerpts come from many sources: Aimé Césaire, Yehuda Amichai, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Setswana proverbs, the Book of Ecclesiastes, Tristan Tzara's Dada Manifesto, and a range of eastern European poets. This volume presents a selection made from the notebook, with phrases arranged neither randomly nor with a clear agenda but finding a space in between. Cleverly designed by the artist and beautifully produced, Words is a thought-provoking collection that provides a window to the mind of a contemporary creative genius.


Author: William Kentridge
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Seagull Books
Published: 05/10/2023
Series: Africa List
Pages: 116
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 11.10h x 8.58w x 0.47d
ISBN: 9781803092171