On 26 May, renowned South African artist William Kentridge will speak about his engagement with the book in all its forms throughout his career. The 2026 McKenzie Lecture takes place on Tuesday 26 May at 5 pm, at the Sohmen Concert Hall, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.
This public conversation between Kentridge and Peter McDonald will examine the enduring role of the book in Kentridge’s work, from his iconic flip-book animations to his use of the page as a site of historical palimpsest and erasure.
Kentridge’s early work in the 1980s and 90s frequently incorporated found paper and fragments, and his 1999 project Curs Pràctic de Gramàtica Catalana, based on a facsimile of a 1933 Catalan grammar, established the ‘book-as-object’ as a sustained concern.