Christian Cieri Artist Presentation - Candice Breitz

Candice Breitz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1972, and moved to America in 1994. She was fascinated by using already made art and appropriating it into her own work, which she frequently did, to comment on some facet of life. She began initially with photography-based art, but as she progressed, she became pre-occupied with video. This was because video contained something photography did not: sound. With sound, Candice was able to apply speech to her work, thus providing a stronger connected between her audience and what she was trying to portray with her work. Candice’s education began in 1993 with a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Witwatersrand, and she continued on the get an M.A. in Art History from the University of Chicago. In 1997 she received her Master of Philosophy in Art History from Columbia University, and from 1998 to 2002, she was a Doctoral Candidate in Art History from Columbia University. Her first exhibition was in 1994 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Johannesburg, and she has since had exhibitions in Stockholm, Chicago, Munich, Texas, London, and Berlin, amongst a myriad of many different places.

Breitz’s work typically comments on different, varied facets of the human experience, and she explores this theme through the use of already created media, often combining different sources and editing them together to make something completely new. Her work also often incorporates multiple screens in one larger space, so multiple things will be occurring on screen that can sometimes be distracting but often mesh together to portray her message of whatever she is trying to tell. Now a tenured professor at the Braunschweig University of Art since 2007, Breitz still has exhibitions, with three solo exhibitions in Johannesburg, Melbourne, and Cape Town. While her work has not shifted out of video, her style of presentation has certainly changed and transformed. Originally, her piece were shown on large screen placed together, but as she advanced in her technique, her presentation has become as much of the art as her actual videos. Now, the videos are show on smaller televisions scattered around a room in different positions depending on the piece. This makes the medium of television more prominent in her work, though video is still her main focus.

On of Breitz’s most well known works is a pair of videos entitled “HER” and “HIM”. Each piece is presented on a set of seven screens, depicting a well known actor and actress that comment on specific facets of life that Candice has chosen for them to speak on. In both pieces, the different voices appear to speak with each other, often replying to questions and syncing in perfect harmony. Meryl Streep “stars” in “HER”, and constantly comments on things in life that are connected to men, specifically marriage for the majority of the project. Jack Nicholson “stars” in “HIM” and in this piece, the focus is on self-identification. These two pieces, shown in separate rooms simultaneously, are not so much about Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, or their performances, but mostly about what is left for media, specifically the cinema, when it is reduced to what appears to be complete babble. This piece also allows for people to associate problems with the two iconic celebrities, which makes the piece more “real” for people as they are performers they can recognize.

A more recent piece produced by Breitz is entitled “Four Duets”, and in this piece, Breitz has taken four pop songs, and edited them together so that they only say the words “I”, “you”, and any variation of these pronouns. The four songs, “I Will Always Love You”, “Hopelessly Devoted to You”, “Close to You”, and “Thorn In My Side”, are reduced to nothing but the two words mentioned above, and each edited version of the song are given two televisions each to play on, with a track of “I” in one, and a track of “you” on another. Through the reduction of these four songs into these two simple words, Breitz manages to show how much the pop love song relies on repetition. Breitz also manages to comment on the songs’ need to always use “I” and “you”, reducing their overdone love message to the two pronouns that, alone, sound selfish and ungiving.

Works I would recommend:

"HER": https://vimeo.com/72201223
"HIM": https://vimeo.com/72198119

"MOTHER": https://vimeo.com/74745827
"FATHER": https://vimeo.com/74739468

"THE AUDITION": https://vimeo.com/59581399

"KING (A Portrait of Michael Jackson)": https://vimeo.com/74959758
"QUEEN (A Portrait of Madonna)": https://vimeo.com/30395719

More information can be found at:

Official Website of Candice Breitz: http://www.candicebreitz.net

Goodman Gallery: http://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/candicebreitz

White Cube: http://whitecube.com/artists/candice_breitz/