Candice Breitz

Transcription

Candice Breitz
Candice
Breitz
Candice Breitz
CANDICE BREITZ AND LOUISE NERI :
ETERNAL RETURNS
Louise Neri
In your work you cut, mask, abbreviate, disrupt, conceal, to signal that
something is missing, or has been taken away. What is your interest in
using traditional modernist strategies such as assemblage, montage, as
well as the conceits of avant-garde linguistic theory ? How do you relate to
the historical precedents ? And what meaning do these strategies carry for
you as an artist of the next century ?
Candice Breitz
To appropriate and sample existing
material is to draw on a long avant-garde tradition. Perhaps in the past it
was possible to imagine this way of working as a deliberately chosen
artistic strategy, as one aesthetic option among others. The fundamental
difference now is that using found or readymade material in one’s work no
longer seems like just an option. Rather, at this point, it is an inescapable
condition, which comes with the realization that the creative process is not
about originating and animating, but rather about recycling, translating,
interpreting, in short, a process of reanimating materials and languages
that pre-exist one’s own practice. One has no choice – if one lives in large
urban centres – but to consume the cultural produce of global capitalism.
But consumption must be followed by digestion, and then excretion.
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Candice Breitz
LN
So then, what is your relationship to contemporaries like Ellen Gallagher,
for instance, who uses similar strategies in certain works ?
CB
In earlier photobased works like the Ghost Series and the Group Portraits, I translated
images from National Geographic -style tourist postcards and glossy
fashion magazines. The idea was to remove certain elements and reconfigure what was left so as to create a new visual grammar through which
previously invisible content might emerge from familiar images. After
the process of deletion, I re-photographed the works in order to eliminate
the fetishistic presence of the source image. In the case of the Ghost
Series and the Rainbow Series, I was working with charged sources and
probing certain race and gender stereotypes. An artist like Ellen Gallagher
– whose work I admire very much – is as likely as I am, as a white South
African, to have her work read psycho-biographically, but to opposite
effect. Which is to say that as an artist of colour she might be granted the
licence to use certain strategies in her work that might be denied to me.
Conversely, I am aware of the invisible power and privilege that come with
being white. The Ghost Series was precisely about the violence that can
be performed by whiteness.
left : Ghost Series #4, 1994–6
right : Rainbow Series #12, 1996
Candice Breitz
some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual information
that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather than only
having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is insidious
mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather than as a
set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape that we
forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I work with
familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise them, to make
them strange again.
Group Portrait #10, 2001
LN
What is it that interests you so much about the
negative space around things ?
CB
So much of our visual culture is about what
is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing attention to
the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a way of
suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it is,
we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
LN
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
CB
That’s why I prefer the term
‘ literacy ’ to ‘ deconstruction ’. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
You were criticised for the way you used
LN
images of black women ?
CB
“ How dare you cut up and white out black
women ? ” was the question I was asked more than once ( Nobody seemed
to mind that I was cutting up white women too ! ). To be interesting, a
question like that would have to include the workings of representation :
“ How dare you cut up images of black women ? ” To assume that an
image can stand in transparently for that which it represents is problematic, especially given the fact that the source images that I was using to
make those early works were images that had already been heavily
conventionalised and encoded ( by National Geographic or Hustler or
Cosmopolitan ).
LN
Well, that touches a larger issue, about the contemporary
inability to distinguish between what is real and what is an image.
CB
Images
have different weights and different use values. Meaning is assigned to
them in the moment of reception, rather than being inherent to them in
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Why did your
LN
attention shift to the moving image ?
CB
The ideas I was exploring in my photobased work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There was
often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video, as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
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Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
culture are much more literate than is generally assumed. I’m interested
in the biographical dimension of pop, how it is woven into the lives of its
users. The stories that consumers tell often have nothing to do with the
illusions that are marketed to them. I’m thinking of some of the fans who
took part in King ( A Portrait of Michael Jackson ). One told us that she had
been in an East German prison for several years, where she was part of a
group of performing prisoners who would illustrate the cultural dimension
of prison life to official visitors by singing and dancing for them. One day
the director of the prison gave her a tape of the Thriller album and
suggested that she include it in her repertoire. At the time, she couldn’t
speak a word of English and had never seen a Michael Jackson video, but
nevertheless she learnt the album off by heart and built it into her routine.
She claims that Jackson’s music helped her to survive her prison
experience. Another young woman from Linz wrote to us requesting the
chance to prove that her two greatest passions in life – Michael Jackson
and belly dancing – were absolutely compatible. She belly danced her way
through the whole Thriller album wearing a sequinned costume that she
had bought in Egypt. These are not people who have simply been coerced
by an oppressive culture industry. They are users of this culture, who have
laid claim to it in ways that could never have been anticipated.
ourselves through our recurring desires. The video loop is a great way to
explore this whole drama.
Babel Series, 1999
You often evoke the idea of ghosts or spectral
LN
presences…
CB
LN
CB
LN
CB
I find mainstream culture to be strangely dead compared to
the multi-layered experience of being alive. A couple of years ago, I used
the title Re-Animations for a catalogue on my work. I’ve never liked the
term ‘animation’ because it implies a theistic, life-giving force. No work of
art can compete with the sheer drama, diversity and interest of everyday
life. Re-animation is more about feeding on cultural corpses, seizing a
piece of inanimate footage and trying to revive it, along with the disastrous
and unpredictable consequences that this might entail. The re-animated
actors who perform for me in Mother + Father never acquire the fluid
movement and full consciousness that we associate with life. Like
Frankenstein’s monster, they jerk and twitch their way through the
narrative.
Lately, this thanatos drive of the re-animated works that belongs
to the “ dead body ” of culture of which you speak, seems to be balanced
by the eros, or amateur vitality, of the karaoke-like works that deal with
human potential and the formation of human identity. With this you
comment on the double-edged aspect of creativity : although your live
subjects are being asked to perform within a prescribed framework, there
is great licence and little mimicry in the ways that they interpret the given
frames.
The tension between eros and thanatos perfectly describes the
love-hate relationship that I have with the mainstream media. The
entertainment industry can be an oppressive force that invades, empties
out and flattens us. We are vulnerable to this culture because it knows
what we lack, or in many cases tells us what we lack, and then maintains
its appeal by promising to address this. On the other hand, there are
significant ways in which we can use this culture, ways in which it can be
moulded to suit our purposes.
Can you elaborate ?
LN
Similarly you
justify your own pirating of pop culture as a ‘shareholder-consumer ’ in this
culture.
CB
An iron can be used to straighten clothes, as a paperweight, or as
a weapon. One should not feel obliged to accept the use that is dictated
by the manufacturer. Similarly, when one buys a CD or a ticket to see a
movie, one should have the right to use these purchases as one chooses,
including the possibility of cutting them up, translating them, or redirecting them.
LN
Do you feel the same way about how someone else might
use your work ?
CB
Absolutely. Culture moves itself forward by cannibalising
other culture. All artists are in dialogue with the work of other artists,
intentionally or not. Since I make my work by feeding off the work of
others, I can hardly object to others feeding off me.
What if your work was
LN
re-appropriated by popular culture ?
CB
Artists have always served as the research and development arm of the entertainment industry. It’s disturbing
when a good idea derived from a work of art is instrumentalised purely to
generate profit, but I think it would be naïve to imagine that, as an artist,
one could prevent the migration of ideas.
Consumers of popular
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Candice Breitz
LN
Well, we’re living in a time where early Conceptual Art strategies have
been appropriated by the advertising industry : the instruction, the non
sequitur, language games, narratives and so on.
CB
Most artistic ideas have a
sell-by date, after which they lose their potency ( but often maintain their
historical interest ). Artists can only remain relevant by constantly coming
up with new strategies that relate to the changing context in which they
work.
LN
You yourself cite Sol LeWitt’s Instructions as inspiration for your
working methods. But, interestingly, you take his original strategy and
apply its clear, rigorous conceptual programme to a new kind of highly
charged content. How do you decide on the structure for any given work ?
Candice Breitz
performances cut from mainstream films that typify Hollywood clichés of
femininity with your own impersonations of that footage, shot verité-style
in black and white. It is a hybrid, positioned between the hypercommodified,
hyperproduced product that you distil and remake and the artless fervour of
the amateur that you capture in real time. Had you studied acting yourself ?
CB
Not at all ! Each re-performance of about a minute of Hollywood footage
took about three days to shoot. Each segment of footage used was chosen
out of sixty or seventy takes. It was sheer agony !
LN
This turns your original
argument about Hollywood artifice on its head, as I’m sure that the
gestures that you trained yourself to mimic are natural to each of these
actresses, their particular tics. After all, actresses are themselves real
people with distinctive characteristics. But, as the only live actor performing several roles in this work, you reverse the relation between yourself and
the ‘ real ’ Hollywood characters that you imitate. They appear to be copies
of you.
CB
Becoming has a ‘pushmi-pullyu’ structure, with me performing on
one screen, and a Hollywood actress on a second, back to back. I tried to
keep this heads-or-tails tension in play by letting each two-headed installation share the same soundtrack. In each case, the voice of the Hollywood
actress is threaded through both bodies simultaneously. One is left
questioning who is playing whom.
v
left : The Ewing Family of Dallas
right : Diorama, 2002
CB
The structure is usually suggested to me by my raw material, the footage
that I want to re-compose. I push it through a process of distillation or
reduction, trying to figure out what makes the footage compelling to me,
what is essential to it. A work like the Babel Series reduces a range of
different music videos from the early days of MTV to a primal babble –
where Madonna’s “ pa-pa-pa-pa ” competes with Freddie Mercury’s
“ ma-ma-ma-ma ” and Sting’s “ da-da-da-da ”. Deliberate communication
is usurped by the circular and noisy spewing of infantile babble. Diorama,
another multi-channel work, boils the soap opera Dallas down to its
archetypal family members, the Mother, the Father, the Good Son, the Bad
Son, and so on, and conducts them in a dizzying chant that draws its
vocabulary from the dilemmas of family life : “ I want a clean and fast
divorce ”, “ You’re no son of mine ”, “ I always cry at weddings ” and so on.
In these and other multi-channel works, such as Four Duets and Karaoke,
the viewer enters a space filled by many disparate and competing voices,
and becomes a human mixing board.
Still from Karaoke, 2000
LN
In Becoming you juxtaposed cameo
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Becoming Jennifer, 2003
LN
Mother + Father is provocative as a work
about genesis and formation of the self. The visual and sound edits focus
on the relationship between the absent child ( almost always masked out of
the frame, along with any identifying context ) and the parent. Using digital
editing processes, you vivisect various famous parental archetypes from
Hollywood movies, divorcing them from their persuasiveness, their pathos,
their authority. You distil them to abrasive pathological entities, with special
focus on their moment of breakdown. Why did you decide on this
‘ temperament ’ and how did you manage to identify it across so many
different subjects ?
CB
I’m obsessed with the loop between fictional life and
lived life. Since Hollywood harvests the drama of everyday life for its plots,
the narratives of Hollywood movies resonate uncannily at times. Are my
feelings coincidentally just like these Hollywood feelings, or are Hollywood
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Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
feelings based on my feelings ? Did that Hollywood father just say the
same thing that my father used to say to me ? Does that Hollywood
actress feel the same way about her mother as I feel about mine ? Much of
my work deals with the question of how we become who we are, and to
what extent this process is influenced by our absorption of the values sold
to us by the mainstream media. More and more we learn who we are not
only from our parents and our immediate social contexts, but also from the
entertainment industry. In this sense, the media has gradually come to
share, and in certain instances to take over, the complex job of parenting.
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
The parent-child relationship maps itself quite neatly onto the star-fan
relationship. The star / parent offers itself to the fan / child as a prototype
to be emulated and duplicated, not only in terms of appearance and
behaviour but also in terms of values. If the media is competing to be a
parent to our children, then what does this media-mom and media-dad
look like ?
In the Babel Series, the parent-child dynamic that I associate with the
fan’s adoration of the star was inverted, as various pop stars looped
through endless monosyllables of baby talk. In Diorama, a whole spectrum
of family experience was collapsed into a primal chant about marriage and
love and divorce and adoption. With Mother + Father, I wanted to explore
the purely affective dimension of Hollywood tearjerkers, the breaking-point
emotions associated with parenthood : rejection, devotion, desperation and
obsession. I wanted to release the affect from linear narrative, to see if
I could free the actors from the original movies and get them to act for
me. Most Hollywood movies depict parents as dysfunctional, unhappy or
incompetent, almost as if in order to claim the parental role for itself,
Hollywood must undermine the credibility of real parenthood.
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
from Mother,
process theStill
images
that2005
are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
That’s why I prefer the term
“ literacy ” to “ deconstruction ”. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
Why did your
Still from the Babel Series, 1999
attention shift to the moving image ?
Well, after all,
LN
Walt Disney’s invention was a parentless world.
CB
LN
Interestingly, viewers who
watch Mother + Father sometimes still identify with the roles that were
originally played by the actors.
Rather than what you have done to them ?
10
The ideas I was exploring in my
photo-based work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
was often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
11
Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
Mother, 2005
6-Channel Installation / 6 Hard Drives
Duration : 13 minutes, 15 seconds
Installation View : Castello di Rivoli, Turin
Private Collection
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
That’s why I prefer the term
“ literacy ” to “ deconstruction ”. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
Why did your
attention shift to the moving image ?
The ideas I was exploring in my
Stills
from Mother,
2005
photo-based
work
tended
to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
was often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
12
12
13
Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
That’s why I prefer the term
“ literacy ” to “ deconstruction ”. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
Why did your
attention shift to the moving image ?
The ideas I was exploring in my
photo-based work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
was often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
Stills from Father, 2005
consistency,
the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
Stills from Mother, 2005
14
14
15
Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
Louise Neri
Candice Breitz
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
Louise Neri
Candice Breitz
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
Father, 2005
6-Channel Installation / 6 Hard Drives
Duration : 11 minutes
That’s why I prefer the term
Installation View : Castello di Rivoli, Turin
“ literacy ” to “Private
deconstruction
”.
Deconstruction
implies the mechanical
Collection
Louise Neri
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
Candice Breitz
Why did your
attention shift to the moving image ?
The ideas I was exploring in my
photo-based work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
was often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
Stills from Father, 2005
Louise Neri
16
16
17
Candice Breitz
CB
Candice Breitz
CB
More than adding something new to the footage, I think I amplified the
neuroses and extremes that were already there. I heightened the intensity
of the footage by removing it from the purpose of telling a specific story,
then looped it, layered it, and teased out its darkest implications. We all
have to deal with family. That’s probably why Jonathan Franzen’s novel
The Corrections – a book that was based on the writer’s own family and
which was a strong inspiration for Mother + Father – was such a hit,
and it may be the same reason why people identify with Mother + Father.
LN
You describe the readymade characters in Mother + Father as ‘ unwilling
marionettes ’. Can you speak about your directorial relation with them ?
CB
I was playing puppet master, trying to get the kidnapped actors to do my
bidding. But the footage had a will of its own and I could feel it tangibly
resisting my direction a lot of the time. The editing process was a tug of
war, with me doing everything in my power to hold onto the strings and
wrest new meaning from the footage, and the footage doing everything
in its power to communicate the messages that it was programmed to
communicate. This struggle to control the production of meaning is a
constant in my work. Meaning always resides somewhere between the
sample and the sampler during the editing process, then later it is
broadened by the viewer.
LN
You work hard to re-edit and thus reconfigure the
performance of highly trained, highly directed, highly paid screen idols, yet
when you work with unknown amateurs you are willing to set up a simple
structure and let their idolatry fill the screen.
CB
The contrast between the
found footage works, and the works in which I give almost free rein to
amateur performers, points to a central dichotomy in my work between
the ‘ somebodies ’ ( stars whose visibility is their claim to power ) and the
‘ nobodies ’ ( fans and consumers of global pop culture, whose identifications and obsessions largely remain invisible ). My own allegiance lies
with the nobodies, amongst whom I count myself as a user of the culture.
Therefore, when I am working with fans, I like to keep my directorial
presence very light, creating an environment in which they can perform
their relationship to the entertainment industry in whatever way they
choose. Interestingly, few fans want to emulate their idols in the studio.
They prefer to translate the material into their own terms. When I make
works like the portraits, effectively I’m surveying a community of consumers who are in dialogue with the music of a particular pop star, and
testing the range of identifications that one pop star can generate. The
diversity is extraordinary.
LN
CB
Still from Father, 2005
LN
CB
LN
LN
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How did this evolution in your work actually occur ?
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CB
After the drama of making Mother + Father, which felt like a decade of
therapy compressed into a year, I wanted to feed some of the ideas that I
had about the star-fan relationship back into a work in which the limelight
was given over to fans. I’d also wanted to experiment with portraiture for
a while. When T - B A21 Vienna commissioned me to make a work in
Jamaica, I decided to make a portrait of Bob Marley, knowing full well how
risky that could be. What I wanted to do was to give the definitive compilation album Legend back to Bob Marley’s Jamaican fans. Thirty Jamaicans
from all walks of life were invited into a professional recording studio in
Port Antonio and given the opportunity to re-perform Legend exactly as
they wished, from beginning to end. Their individual performances were
then assembled on a wall of thirty monitors. In the final portrait, Marley’s
voice and the familiar musical arrangements are absent ( the fans sing
along to an album that we no longer hear ). He remains present in the work
only as a complex composite of those whose stories he has told and those
whose lives have intersected with his music.
LN
And the portraits that
followed, King ( A Portrait of Michael Jackson ) and Queen ( A Portrait
of Madonna ) ?
CB
I was curious whether the performances of the Marley fans
could be seen to represent the general relationship of fans to their idols or
whether their studio appearances were specific to Bob Marley fans and
the Jamaican context. To find out, I decided to make portraits of Pop’s
royal couple, Madonna and Michael Jackson. In terms of their influence,
Madge and Jacko play something akin to a parental role in the lives of their
serious fans, so I thought it would be interesting to show King and Queen
alongside Mother + Father. King was shot in a recording studio in Berlin,
where sixteen Jackson fans from all over Germany and Austria were asked
to perform the entire Thriller album for us. Queen was shot a week later in
Milan. Droves of Italian Madonna fanatics responded to the ads that we
placed in newspapers and on fan websites, and we finally selected thirty
to perform the full seventy-three minutes of the Immaculate Collection.
I decided that the two new portraits would follow the same basic format
as Legend : in each case, the structure and length of the original album
would determine the structure and length of the new work.
Candice Breitz
and over again on her powers of self-transformation, and many felt
vicariously empowered by her in-your-face attitude. Just as every parentchild relationship is the same but different from the next, each star-fan
relationship involves a delicate and unique machinery. As the series of
portraits develops, I hope to be able to show the interviews that we have
been doing with each fan alongside the actual portraits.
LN
How did you
choose the locations and how did they affect the portraits ?
CB
I am interested
in the tension between a very global mainstream culture and the local
contexts in which it is absorbed and used. I think that King says as much
about a specific social and historical moment in Germany, where it was
shot, as it does about Michael Jackson. Since Madonna is always making
reference to her Italian roots, it was fun to give her album to a group of
Italians to interpret, to give the work an Italian accent. The portraits bring
together the intimate experience of listening to a favourite album at home,
with the more global longing for fame that is inherent to the screen test.
LN
Yet they are very different from Warhol’s Screen Tests, which were
deliberately inert and controlled.
Andy Warhol, Screen Test ( Nico ), 1966
CB
They are similar in that they tell us more
about how the individuals portrayed would like them-selves to be seen,
than who these individuals actually are. Like Warhol’s subjects, each fan
treated his or her moment in front of the camera as he or she wished,
and each performance is given equal importance in the final presentation
of the work.
So, do you accept Joseph Beuys’ maxim that everybody is
LN
How do they
LN
an artist ?
differ ?
CB
CB
Astoundingly. The Jackson fans had just witnessed the end of their
idol’s recent legal trial and some were vulnerable and defensive as a result.
Several identified with Jackson not only because they loved his music, but
also because they saw him as a survivor who had managed to withstand
a series of life challenges. Many of them told stories about hardships that
they themselves had overcome. The Madonna fans were an altogether
more gregarious bunch, ranging from rampant exhibitionists to housewives
who saw Madonna as “ the mother who has it all ”. They commented over
20
Not really. I’m pretty realistic about what these portraits can and
can’t achieve. One of the Michael Jackson fans told us that her day in the
recording studio was the best day of her life, because she hated her nineto-five life and this was the furthest she had ever managed to escape from
it. Her perform-ance was one of the most ex-uberant and cathartic that we
have shot. The next day she drove home to her nine-to-five life. A young
woman who performed for us in Milan told us that singing the Madonna
album for us “ was like a marriage… it only happens for one day, but you
21
Candice Breitz
remember it forever .” These kinds of com-ments reveal that the fans
themselves understand that their performances are anomalous moments
that have little to do with their daily lives.
Why are you so obsessed by
LN
repetition ?
It’s almost impossible to escape the force of habit.
CB
Candice Breitz
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
—
Berlin, 2005
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
That’s why I prefer the term
“ literacy ” to “ deconstruction ”. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
Legendthe
( A Portrait
2005
between
lines, oftoBob
beMarley
able), to
read what is not there.
30-Channel Installation / 30 Hard Drives
Duration : 62 minutes, 40 seconds
Installation View : Das Schiff, Basel
Courtesy
: Thyssen-Bornemisza
Art Contemporary,
attention
shift to the moving
imageVienna
?
Why did your
The ideas I was exploring in my
photo-based work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
was often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
22
23
Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
That’s why I prefer the term
“ literacy ” to “ deconstruction ”. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
Why did your
Stills from Legend, 2005
attention shift to the moving image ?
The ideas I was exploring in my
photo-based work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
The Making of Legend ( A Portrait of Bob Marley )
was
often
an Port
implied
duration
built2005
into them. It was a logical step to start
Gee Jam
Studios,
Antonio,
Jamaica, March
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
values and behaviours. We learn who we are by watching others. We learn
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
24
24
25
Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
them in some essential way. We can’t get rid of the glut of visual
information that surrounds us, but we can make images work for us, rather
than only having them work on us. The culture of spectacular images is
insidious mainly because it presents itself as a natural landscape, rather
than as a set of artificial conventions. We grow so used to this landscape
that we forget it might be possible to map alternate landscapes. When I
work with familiar images, part of what I want to do is to de-naturalise
them, to make them strange again.
Group Portrait #10, 2001
What is it that interests you so much
about the negative space around things ?
So much of our visual culture is
about what is left out, what goes unsaid, what remains invisible. Drawing
attention to the negative spaces – things that usually remain invisible – is a
way of suggesting that though we cannot escape the culture machine as it
is, we can use literacy to counter it. We can train ourselves to examine and
process the images that are fed to us, rather than simply swallowing them
whole.
But deconstruction is now fully absorbed, even commodified, in
contemporary culture. It is no longer a theory.
That’s why I prefer the term
“ literacy ” to “ deconstruction ”. Deconstruction implies the mechanical
dismantling of a structure. Literacy simply implies an ability to read
between the lines, to be able to read what is not there.
Why did your
attention shift to the moving image ?
The ideas I was exploring in my
photo-based work tended to be linguistic and performative in nature. There
was often an implied duration built into them. It was a logical step to start
experimenting with moving images. The dimension of sound attracted me.
I was also interested in the mechanical and repetitive potential of video as
this relates to certain psychological impulses. The drama of being is a
drama of repetition. To maintain a notion of who we are requires a certain
consistency, the constant repeating and confirming of certain beliefs,
Stills from Queen ( A Portrait of Madonna ), 2005
values30-Channel
and behaviours.
We
Installation / 30
Hardlearn
Driveswho we are by watching others. We learn
Duration
:
73
minutes,
30
seconds
to speak in the same way, through mimicry and repetition. We get to know
26
26
27
Candice Breitz
Candice Breitz
Stills from Queen, 2005
The Making of Queen ( A Portrait of Madonna )
Jungle Sound Station, Milan, Italy, July 2005
28
28
29
Candice Breitz
Images
Page 4
Ghost Series # 4, 1994 – 6
Colour photograph / 40”× 27”
Courtesy: Milwaukee Art Museum
Rainbow Series # 12, 1996
Cibachrome photograph / 40”× 60”
Courtesy: Pierre Huber, Geneva
Page 5
Group Portrait # 10, 2001
Cibachrome photograph / 20”× 16”
Courtesy: Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
Page 6
Babel Series, 1999
DVD installation / 7 Looping DVDs
Installation view: O.K Center for Contemporary Art Upper Austria, Linz
Courtesy: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
Page 8
Diorama, 2002
DVD installation / 9 Looping DVDs
Commissioned by ArtPace, San Antonio
Installation view: Statements, Art Basel Miami Beach
Courtesy: True Collection, Seattle
Still from Karaoke, 2000
DVD installation / 10 looping DVDs
Courtesy: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Page 9
Stills from Becoming Jennifer, 2003
Dual-channel Installation / 2 hard drives
Duration: 34 seconds, 12 frames
Courtesy: Sammlung Goetz, Munich
Page 10
Stills from Babel Series, 1999
DVD installation / 7 looping DVDs
Courtesy: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
Stills from King ( A Portrait of Michael Jackson ), 2005
16-Channel Installation / 16 Hard Drives
Duration : 42 minutes, 20 seconds
30
31
Acknowledgments
Page 11 – 18
Acknowledgments
Mother + Father, 2005
Backdrop
Catering
Technical Realisation
Two 6-Channel Installations
Duration of Father: 11 minutes
Duration of Mother: 13 minutes, 15 seconds
Director
Producer
Post-Production
Post-Production Assistants
Sound
Technical Realisation
Special Thanks
Special Thanks
Candice Breitz
Jack Bakker
Alexander Fahl
Julien Binet, Yvonne Brandl, Halina Kliem, Andrei Loginov,
Lars Oeschler, René Petit, Julia Pfeiffer, Janne Schäfer,
Boris Schmidt, Max Schneider, Katja Schubert,
Riccardo Zito.
Max Schneider
Neue Medien Projekte, Berlin
MaloTek, New York
Jack Bakker, Marcella Beccaria, Nicolette Cavaleros,
María and Lorena de Corral, Alessio delli Castelli,
Benjamin Geiselhart, Ida Gianelli, Antonio Homem,
Francesca Kaufmann, Michael Lantz, Bjørn Melhus,
Matthias Mühling + Ulrich Maria Rasche,
Ileana Sonnabend, Raimar Stange, Ralph Niebuhr,
Tobias Stengl, Jason Ysenberg.
Mother + Father are dedicated to, though not
necessarily inspired by EPB and LRB.
Page 26 – 28
QUEEN ( A Portrait of Madonna ), 2005
30-Channel Installation
Duration : 73 minutes, 30 seconds
Director
Producer
Location
Fans
Project Management / Milan
Project Management / Berlin
Casting
Camera
Sound
Interviews
Production Assistants
Post-Production
Post-Production Assistant
Mariarosa Repetto
Francesca Kaufmann, Daphné Valroff, Bess Bajric
Neue Medien Projekte, Berlin
MaloTek, New York
Michael Lantz, Alessio delli Castelli, Benjamin Geiselhart,
Ralph Niebuhr, Giancarlo + Mariarosa Repetto,
Linda Arcieri, Bess Bajric
Page 30
KING ( A Portrait of Michael Jackson ), 2005
16-Channel Installation
Duration : 42 minutes, 20 seconds
Director
Producer
Location
Fans
Project Management
Casting
Camera
Sound
Interviews
Post-Production
Post-Production Assistant
Technical Realisation
Candice Breitz
Francesca Kaufmann
UFO Sound Studios, Berlin : July 2005
Andrew Cannon, Alexander Stolz,
Rames Gouri, Gina Behrendt, Tanja Kerbler, Isabel Röhl,
Claudia Wildner, Manuela Köllner, Katrin Orejuela,
Eren Mendez Küslümoglu de la Vega,
Melanie Diana Viereck, Kerrar Kilic, Ceyhun Katircioglu,
Adlai Ogbonna, Kirsten Köhler, Rico Richter.
Special thanks to Markus Schielke.
Janne Schäfer, Alexander Fahl
Janne Schäfer
Yoliswa Gärtig
Max Schneider
Candice Breitz, Janne Schäfer
Alexander Fahl
Julia Pfeiffer
Neue Medien Projekte, Berlin
MaloTek, New York
Candice Breitz
Francesca Kaufmann
Jungle Sound Station, Milan : July 2005
Matteo ‘Mayday’ Golinelli, Giancarlo Furfaro,
Maurizio Cargnelutti, Besim ‘Bess’ Bajric, Sara Ballerini,
Michele Albertin, Valeria Saccà, Mariella Mulé,
Marika De Sandoli, Fiammetta Fabrizi, Fabiano Cecconi,
Michele Valentino, Claudia Garavaglia, Tommaso Tanini,
Beatrice Sinisi, Maria Zuccarino, Antonella Adriomi,
Nicola Casadei, Paolo Piovera, Alessandra Grignani,
Fabrizio Canepa, Alessia Alberti, Marco di Nola,
Giuseppe Russo, Linda Arcieri, Augusto Castelli,
Roberta Giovanardi, Silvia Celestini, Giuseppe Brocato,
Alessandro Bizzozero. Giorgio Galfo, Chiara Boari Ortolani
and Francesco Cappellano also sang for Queen.
Chiara Repetto
Alexander Fahl
Chiara Repetto
Sebastian Krügler
Max Schneider
Gianpaolo Manzoni, Chiara Repetto
Gianpaolo Manzoni, Daphné Valroff
Alexander Fahl
Riccardo Zito
32
33
Biography
Biography
Candice Breitz was born in Johannesburg, 1972.
Currently based in Berlin.
1998
1998 – 2002
1997
1997
1995
1993
Doctoral Candidate in Art History, Columbia University, New York
Whitney Independent Studio Program, Whitney Museum, New York
M.Phil. Art History, Columbia University, New York
M.A. Art History, University of Chicago, Chicago
B.A. ( Fine Arts ), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
1997
Residencies
2005
2003
2002
2002
2001
2000
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
IASPIS International Artists’ Studio Program, Stockholm
Künstlerhaus Bethanien International Artists in Residency Program, Berlin
ArtPace Foundation, San Antonio
O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst Oberösterreich, Linz
Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Wiepersdorf
Solo Exhibitions
2005
Castello di Rivoli, Turin
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Sonnabend Gallery, New York
Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg
Das Schiff, Basel
2004
Sonnabend Gallery, New York
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
FACT / Foundation for Art & Creative Technology, Liverpool
Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo
Galleri Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
Education
2003
Modern Art Oxford, Oxford
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
asprey jacques, London
De Beeldbank, Eindhoven
Goethe Institute, Zagreb
2002
ArtPace Foundation, San Antonio
INOVA Institute of Visual Arts, Milwaukee
Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
Museum Folkwang / RWE-Turm, Essen
2001
De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam
O.K Center for Contemporary Art Upper Austria, Linz
Kunstverein St. Gallen Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen
Galerie Johnen & Schöttle, Cologne
Galleri Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
Galeria João Graça, Lisbon
francesca kaufmann, Milan
2000
Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
Galerie Art + Public, Geneva
Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich
francesca kaufmann, Milan
Chicago Project Room, Chicago
Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Wiepersdorf
1999
Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich
Galleri Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
34
1996
1995
1994
Selected Group
Exhibitions
Galerie Johnen & Schöttle, Cologne
Sala Mendoza, Caracas
Chicago Project Room, Chicago
Galleri Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
Craig Krull Gallery, Los Angeles
Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich
The Space Gallery, Johannesburg
Cochrane Woods Art Center, Chicago
Institute of Contemporary Art, Johannesburg
2005
The Experience of Art, 51. Esposizione Internationale d’Arte,
Biennale di Venezia ( cat. )
CUT : Film as Found Object, Milwaukee Art Museum ( cat. )
Fair Use, Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Circa Berlin, Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen
Superstars, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Others, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand
Girls on Film, Zwirner + Wirth Gallery, New York
Artists Interrogate : Race and Identity, Milwaukee Art Museum ( cat. )
Moving On, NGBK, Berlin
Collection, Pierre Huber, Le Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne
Aiwa To Zen, Tranzit, Prague
11th Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement,
Centre pour l’image contemporaine, Geneva
2004
TV Today, Montevideo Time Based Arts, Amsterdam
Africa Screams, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
The Work of the Work, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle
Video Hits, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Music / Video, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York
Why Not Live For Art ?, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo
Me Myself I, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Shake, Villa Arson, Nice
CUT : Film as Found Object, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami
Shake Staatsaffäre, O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz
Aufruhr der Gefühle, Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig
and Kunsthalle Göppingen
Art Unlimited, Art 35 Basel, Basel
Any Place Any, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki
Videothek, Galerie der Stadt Wels, Wels
Strange Planet, Saltworks Gallery, Atlanta
Gewalt, Loushy Art & Editions, Tel Aviv
Africa Screams, Iwalewa House, Bayreuth ( cat. )
Visions of Paradise, João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town
Through the Looking Glass, Albany History Museum, Grahamstown
Open House : Art and the Public Sphere,
O.K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz
Democracy and Change, Klein Karoo National Arts Festival, Oudtshoorn
Weiße Nächte Kiel Oben, Kunsthalle Kiel
100 Handlungsanweisungen, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna ( cat. )
Cabinet photographique érotique, Galerie Steinek, Vienna
2003
fuckin’ trendy – Mode in der zeitgenössischen Kunst,
Kunsthalle Nürnberg
Continuity and Transgression, National Museum of Art Osaka, Osaka
Extended Play : Art Remixing Music, Govett-Brewster Art Museum,
New Zealand
Brightness ( Works from the Collection of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art
35
Biography
Contemporary), Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik
Plunder, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee
2nd International Biennial for Contemporary Art in Göteborg, Gothenburg
Striptease : Vom Verschleiern + Enthüllen in der Kunst, Kunstmuseum,
St. Gallen
Looks of Complicity, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea,
Santiago de Compostela
Some Things We Like…, asprey jacques, London
Pictured, Galleri Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
Anemic Cinema, Sketch, London
Paradigms, Longwood Art Gallery, New York
Fins des Histoires ? Une traversée plurielle,
Cité des Arts Chambéry, Chambéry
Gallery Opening Show, Shugo Arts, Tokyo
2002
Remix : Contemporary Art and Pop, Tate Liverpool
Arte in Video, Castello di Rivoli, Turin
Continuity + Transgression, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Iconoclash : Image-Making in Science, Religion & Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe
Schrägspur, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Vidéo Topiques, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg
Screen Memories, Art Tower Mito Contemporary Art Center, Tokyo
Africaine, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
40 Jahre : Fluxus und die Folgen, Caligari FilmBühne, Wiesbaden
Emotional Site, Saga-cho Shokuryo Building, Tokyo
Centre of Attraction, 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius
Superlounge, Gale Gates, New York
In the Side of Television, Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló, Castellon
Candice Breitz, Christian Jankowski, Kenny Macleod,
Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London
Sublimation, Klein Karoo National Arts Festival, Oudtshoorn
Metropolis, Navy Pier, Chicago Art Fair, Chicago
Total Überzogen, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg
Solitudes, Galerie Michel Rein, Paris
2001
Tele[Visions], Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Monet’s Legacy, Series – Order and Obsession, Kunsthalle Hamburg ( cat. )
Looking at You, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel
Escape, Tirana Biennale 2001 ( cat. )
19th World Wide Video Festival 2001, Amsterdam
Su La Testa !, Palazzo Delle Papesse, Siena
Sculpture Contemporaine, Collection Frac Rhône-Alpes /
Les Subsistances, Lyon
Electronic Maple, NY Center for Media Arts, New York
Post-Production, Galleria Continua, San Gimigniano
18th Kassel Documentary, Film and Video Festival, Kassel
Hallucinating Love Foundation, asprey jacques, London
My Generation, Atlantis Gallery, London
En Avant, Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna
Prodigal Prodigy, White Box, New York
Song Poems, Cohan Leslie & Browne, New York
Group Exhibition, Galerie Mezzanin, Vienna
2000
The Sky is the Limit !, Taipei Biennale 2000 ( cat. )
Man + Space, Kwangju Biennale Korea 2000 ( cat. )
The Anagrammatical Body, ZKM, Karlsruhe
The Wounded Diva, Kunstverein München, Munich
Das Lied von der Erde, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel
36
Biography
Körper, Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna
Horizons, Galleri Roger Björkholmen, Stockholm
face-à-face, Kunstpanorama Luzern, Lucerne
One-Night Stand, João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town
Tomorrow, Rare Art Gallery, New York
30th Anniversary Benefit, White Columns, New York
Translations, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, New York
Day Against Racial Discrimination, Akademie Wien, Vienna
One Film for One Screen, Cinéma Le Pestel, Die
1999
The Passion and the Wave, 6th International Istanbul Biennial,
Istanbul ( cat. )
The Anagrammatical Body, Kunsthaus Mürzzuschlag
Global Art 2000, Museum Ludwig, Köln
1998
Roteiros, Roteiros, Roteiros…, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo ( cat. )
Interferencias, Canal de Isabel II, Madrid ( cat. )
Transatlantico, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Canary Islands ( cat. )
1997
Permutations, Artist’s Space, New York
Heaven : A Private View, P.S.1, New York
Graft, Johannesburg Biennale, Cape Town
Funny Pictures, Ten in One Gallery, Chicago
Me, Clementine Gallery, New York
Tran<sonic, Espacio 204, Caracas
1996
Romper Room, Thread Waxing Space, New York
Inklusion / Exklusion, Neue Galerie Graz in Reininghaus, Graz ( cat. )
Interzones, Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen ( cat. )
Group Exhibition, The Space Gallery, Johannesburg
1995
Black Looks / White Myths, Africana Museum, Johannesburg
Taking Liberties / The Body Politic, Johannesburg Biennale ( cat. )
—
37
Selected Bibliography
Monographs
Beccaria, Marcella. Candice Breitz ( Milan : Skira, 2005 )
Cotter, Suzanne ( Ed. ). Candice Breitz : Re-Animations ( Oxford : Modern Art Oxford, 2003 )
Tannert, Christoph et al. Candice Breitz : ALIEN ( Ten Songs from Beyond ) ( Folkwang :
Museum Folkwang and RWE Turm, Essen, 2002 ). Also available at :
http ://flash.isa-team.de/global/candice%20Breitz/candicebreitz.html
Sturm, Martin and Renate Plöchl. Candice Breitz : CUTTINGS ( Linz : O.K. Center for
Contemporary Art Upper Austria, 2001 )
Publications
Perryer, Sophie. 10 Years 100 Artists / Art in a Democratic South Africa
( Cape Town : Bell-Roberts Publishing / Struik Publishers, 2004 ) pp. 74 – 77
Rollig, Stella et al. Open House – Art and the Public Sphere
( Linz : O.K Center for Contemporary Art Upper Austria, 2004 )
Schmahmann, Brenda. Through the Looking Glass : Representations of Self by
South African Women Artists ( Johannesburg : David Krut Publishing, 2004 ) pp. 80 – 81
Wendl, Tobias et al. Africa Screams : Das Böse in Kino, Kunst und Kult
( Wuppertal : Peter Hammer Verlag, 2004 )
Bourriaud, Nicolas. Postproduction : Sampling, Programming, Displaying
( San Gimignano : Galleria Continua, 2003 )
Gianelli, Ida and Marcella Beccaria. Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art :
The Castle – The Collection ( Turin : Umberto Allemandi & C., 2003 ) p. 114
Pace, Linda et al. Dreaming Red : Creating ArtPace ( Verona : Artegrafica, 2003 )
Von Hausswolff, Carl Michael and Åsa Nohlström. Against All Evens : 2nd International
Biennial for Contemporary Art in Göteborg ( Gothenburg : Hasselblad Centre, 2003 )
Nakabayashi, Kazuo ( Ed. ). A Perspective on Contemporary Art : Continuity/Transgression
( Tokyo : The National Museum of Modern Art, 2002 )
Grosenick, Uta and Riemschneider, Burkhard. ART NOW :
137 Artists at the Rise of the New Millennium ( Cologne : Taschen, 2002 )
Atkinson, Brenda and Candice Breitz ( Ed. ). Grey Areas : Representation, Identity and
Politics in Contemporary South African Art ( Johannesburg : Chalkham Hill Press, 1999 )
Zaya, Octavio ( Ed. ). Interferencias ( Madrid : Tabapress, 1998 )
Enwezor, Okwui and Matthew DeBord ( editors ). Trade Routes : History and Geography
( Johannesburg, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale Catalogue, 1997 )
Weibel, Peter ( Ed. ). Inklusion/Exklusion : Art in the Age of Postcolonialism and
Global Migration ( Cologne : Dumont, 1997 )
Michelson, Anders and Octavio Zaya ( Ed. ). Interzones : A Work In Progress
( Copenhagen : Kunstforeningen, 1996 )
Periodicals
Korotkin, Joyce. ‘Candice Breitz : Sonnabend Gallery, New York, Tema Celeste, No. 103,
May – June 2004, p. 93
Spiegler, Marc. ‘Candice Breitz : Max Hetzler, Berlin’, Artnews, March 2004, p. 140
Kröner, Magdalena. ’Candice Breitz : Schreien, Stottern, Singen : Das Playback des Ich :
Ein Gespräch mit Magdalena Kröner’, Kunstforum, No. 168, January 2004, pp. 276 – 283
Schmitz, Edgar. ’Candice Breitz : Re-Animations’, Kunstforum, No. 167,
November – December 2003, pp. 346 – 48
Haines, Bruce. ‘Candice Breitz : Re-Animations/Jim Lambie : Male Stripper’, Contemporary,
November – December 2003, p. 71
Stange, Raimar. ‘Candice Breitz : Galerie Max Hetzler’, Flash Art, No. 233,
November – December 2003, p. 104
Wainwright, Jean. ‘Candice Breitz : Modern Art Oxford’, Art Monthly, No. 271,
November 2003, pp. 18 – 19
Stange, Raimar. ‘Candice Breitz in der Galerie Hetzler : Monitor mit Nabelschnur’,
Der Tagesspiegel, 4 October 2003, p. 28
Mullins, Charlotte. ‘Sigmar Polke and Candice Breitz :
Taking Pot Shots at a Media-Saturated World’, The Financial Times, 1 October 2003
Gohlke, Gerrit. ‘Schutz und Trutz, Stirn und Hand : Über Alien – eine Videoinstallation von
Candice Breitz’, BE Magazin # 9 Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2003 pp. 116-22
Ratnam, Niru. ‘Up Front On The Verge : Candice Breitz’, Observer Magazine,
24 August 2003, p. 15
38
Selected Bibliography
Geldard, Rebecca. ‘Candice Breitz/Asprey Jacques’, Time Out, 19 – 26 March 2003
Vogel, Matthias. ‘Mythos Cyborg : Der “ Maschinenmensch ” als Thema der
Gegenwartskunst’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 13 March 2003
Kojima, Yayoi. ‘People : Candice Breitz’, Esquire Magazine ( Tokyo ), Vol. 17, No. 1,
January 2003, p. 47
Bussel, David. ‘Candice Breitz’, I -D Magazine, January 2003, p. 171
Stange, Raimar. ‘Raimar Stange über Candice Breitz’, Artist Kunstmagazin,
No. 54 January 2003, p. 24
Stange, Raimar. ‘Candice Breitz : Mediale Aliens’, u_Spot, January 2003, p. 13
Stange, Raimar. ‘Candice Breitz im Museum Folkwang’, Kunst-Bulletin, November 2002
Murray, Soraya. ‘Africaine : Candice Breitz, Wangechi Mutu, Tracey Rose, Fatimah Tuggar’,
Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, No. 16 / 17, Fall/Winter 2002, p. 88
Weil, Rex. ‘Candice Breitz : De Appel/Amsterdam’, Artnews, Summer 2002, p. 184
Cotter, Holland. ‘Cinema à la Warhol, With Cowboys, Stillness and Glamour’,
New York Times, 5 April 2002
Gupta, Anjali. ‘The Conversation : A Discussion with ArtPace’s Candice Breitz’,
San Antonio Current, 21 – 27 February 2002, p. 15
Sumiyoshi, Chie. ‘Mito : Candice Breitz’, Brutus, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2002, p. 155
Rohr-Bongard, Linde. ‘Kunst-Kompass : Stars von Morgen’, Capital, No. 13, 2002
Robecchi, Michele. ‘Reviews : Candice Breitz/Francesca Kaufmann’, Flash Art Italia,
No. 231, December 2001 – January 2002
Cherubini, Laura. ‘Tre star brillano nel cielo di Candice Breitz’, il Giornale, 22 October 2001
Gardner, Belinda Grace. ‘Kein Heuhaufen fällt zweimal in denselben Fluß’,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 October 2001
Krumpl, Doris. ‘Sanfter Tod mit Liebesliedern : Candice Breitz mit “ Cuttings ” im Linzer
O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst’, Der Standard, 4 July 2001
Louis, Eleonora. ‘Candice Breitz : Cuttings’, Springerin, March 2001, p. 68
Pollack, Barbara. ‘Africa’s Avant-Garde – The Newest Avant-Garde’, Artnews, April 2001
Corbetta, Caroline. ‘Candice Breitz : Francesca Kaufmann’, Flash Art Italia, No. 221,
April – May 2000
Higgie, Jennifer. ‘Istanbul Biennial’, Frieze, Issue 50, January – February 2000
Hunt, David. ‘Candice Breitz : Fighting Words’, Flash Art, No. 211, March – April 2000
Hunt, David. ‘Sixth International Istanbul Biennial’, Art & Text, No. 68, February – April 2000
Keller, Claudia. ‘Idylle mit Leichen’, Der Tagesspiegel, 23 August 2000, p. 26
Law, Jennifer. ‘Ghost Stories : Democracy, Duplicity and Virtuality in the Work of Candice
Breitz’, Frauen Kunst Wissenschaft, 29 June 2000
Noè, Paola. ‘Candice Breitz : Galleria Francesca Kaufmann’, Tema Celeste,
March – April 2000
Tatot, Claude-Hubert. ‘Parole et parole et parole… Candice Breitz : Babel Series’,
Papiers Libres Art Contemporain, No. 21, July 2000
Dziewior, Yilmaz. ‘Candice Breitz : Galerie Johnen & Schöttle’, Artforum, March 1999
Herzog, Samuel. ‘Istanbul Sechste Internationale Biennale’, Kunst-Bulletin, No. 11,
November 1999
Axel, Brian Keith. ‘Disembodiment and the Total Body : A Response to Enwezor on
Contemporary South African Representation’, Third Text, No. 44, Autumn 1998
Sonna, Birgit. ‘Cindy Shermans kleine Schwestern’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 26 August 1998
Zaya, Octavio. ‘Reflections on Candice Breitz’s Rorschach Series, TRANS, Winter 1998
Enwezor, Okwui. ‘Reframing the Black Subject : Ideology and Fantasy in Contemporary
South African Representation’, Third Text, No. 40, Autumn 1997
Hoffmann, Justin. ‘Inklusion :Exklusion’, Kunstforum, No. 136, February – May 1997
Kravagna, Christian. ‘Mr. Livingstone, I presume…’ Springerin, Vol. III, Issue 2, 1997
Atkinson, Brenda. ‘Rethinking Pornography : Imaging Desire. Candice Breitz interviewed by
Brenda Atkinson’, Camera Austria, No. 56, 1996
Enwezor, Okwui and Octavio Zaya. ‘Moving In : Eight Contemporary African Artists’
Flash Art, No. 186, January – February 1996
Zaya, Octavio. ‘Global Art : Candice Breitz’, Flash Art, No. 191, November – December 1996
Powell, Ivor. ‘Watch This Artist’, The Weekly Mail and Guardian : Johannesburg,
18 – 24 March 1994
39
Colophon
Published by
Jay Jopling/White Cube
48 Hoxton Square
London N1 6PB
United Kingdom
Tel +44 ( 0 )20 7930 5373
Fax +44 ( 0 )2077497470
www.whitecube.com
In association with
Sonnabend
536 West 22nd Street
New York
New York 10011
United States
Tel +( 212 ) 627 1018
Fax +( 212 ) 627 0489
francesca kaufmann
Via dell Orso, 16
Milan 20121
Italy
Tel +39 ( 0 )27 209 4331
Fax +39 ( 0 )27 209 6873
www.galleriafrancescakaufmann.com
On the occasion of
the exhibitions
Candice Breitz
White Cube, London
7 September – 8 October 2005
and
Candice Breitz
Sonnabend, New York
18 September – 29 October 2005
Design
Print
Laurent Benner / Reala
Druckerei Odermatt, Switzerland
Photography
Jason Mandella : Page 6
Paolo Pellion : Pages 12, 17
Candice Breitz : Pages 10, 23, 25, 29 + Cover Photograph
Alexander Fahl : Pages 8, 9, 11, 13 – 16, 18, 24, 26 – 28, 30
ISBN
0–9550499–0–3
40