The Scripted Life
Curator Rudolf Sagmeister
Though Candice Breitz (*1972 Johannesburg, South Africa) has focused
largely on creating multi-channel video installations since 1999, her approach Web
to the moving image grows out of an earlier body of photographic work, in
which she made extensive use of photomontage and cut-and-paste
strategies. In composing her multi-channel video installations, Breitz deploys
both freshly shot footage and material drawn from familiar films, modifying
her source material digitally in the working. Amongst other themes, Breitz’s
video oeuvre reflects critically on the narrative structure of Hollywood
cinema, the counter-projections of fans and their idols, and the challenges
posed to the individual and individuality within contemporary media culture.
The Kunsthaus Bregenz presents a selection of Breitz’s best known video
installations as well as several new works that have never been shown in
Europe before: Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon), 2006;
Him + Her, 1968 –2008; and five double por traits from the new series
Factum, 2009. The premiere of the video installation New York, New York,
2009, created especially for the exhibition as a co-production between
Performa 09 and the KUB, is a special highlight of the exhibition.
New York, New York grows out of and includes documentation of Breitz’s
first foray into directing live theatrical performance. On 12 and 13 November
2009, Breitz directed two evenings of improvised performance at the Abrons
Arts Center in New York. Each evening featured two nearly identical casts
composed of four pairs of identical twins, with each pair of twins split
between the two casts of four actors. The live performances grew out of
intensive character development sessions during which each pair of siblings
was invited to create a character between them that both would be willing to
play on stage, albeit in a separate cast. New York, New York shifts the
probing of sameness and difference that has been central to Breitz’s video-
based work into the space of live performance, bringing her interest in what
she has called “the scripted life” together with an ongoing reflection on the
fragile condition of individuality. For the first time, the work will be presented
at the KUB in the form of a two-part video installation. While the first part is
comprised of four short films that document each of the four character
development sessions, the second part of the installation consists of two
projections that are experienced parallel to one another, evoking
stereoscopic vision as they document each of the separate casts responding
to the improvisational challenge of taking their characters live on stage.
The Factum series, out of which New York, New York stems, deals with
identity in relation to the social tendency to fetishize uniqueness and
individuality. The artist conducted lengthy, in-depth interviews with several
pairs of identical twins on camera during the summer of 2009. Named after a
pair of near-identical paintings by Robert Rauschenberg (Factum I and
Factum II, both 1957), Breitz’s Factum consists of sophisticated portraits of
each pair of identical twins, edited out of their own self-narrations. Breitz
interviewed each sibling separately about his or her life, asking each the
same set of questions, before subtly weaving the two interviews together to
reflect on the similarities and differences that characterize each pair. Each
pair of twins appears side by side on matching monitors.
Staging a conversation between 23 Jack Nicholsons extracted from films
made by the actor over a period of 40 years, Him unfolds a schizophrenic,
kaleidoscopic set of interactions between Jack and himself. While the range
of characters in Him struggle with issues of self-definition and sexual
performance, the self-worth of the female characters in Her, a dialogue
between 28 Meryl Streeps, is primarily determined by their relationships to
the men in their lives. The work explores the mainstream effect of pop culture
in terms of mythos, idol, and projection.
The fourth part in a series portraying pop legends such as Bob Marley,
Madonna, and Michael Jackson, Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John
Lennon) offered 25 dedicated fans of John Lennon the chance to re-perform
Lennon’s first solo album John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band (1970), on which
he explored traumatic childhood memories during a period when he was
undergoing primal therapy. Lennon screams out his anger and despair, as do
some of the 25 fans singing after him. Collectively, the fans merge to form a
25-headed a cappella choir, each performing his or her own interpretation of
the original album. With a duration of nearly forty minutes (matching the
duration of the original album by Lennon), Working Class Hero is presented
across 25 plasma displays in a continuous loop. Breitz’s portrayal of music
fans both confirms and disrupts fixed notions about the figure of the fan in
today's society, exploring the extent to which individual expression may or
may not be possible ́within contemporary mass culture.
KUB Billboards
January 18 – April 11, 2010
Seestraße Bregenz
Candice Breitz
The Scripted Life
Candice Breitz will fill the KUB Billboards with double portraits of the five
pairs of identical twins who participated in New York, New York, a new work
that was recently co-produced by Kunsthaus Bregenz and Performa 09 in
New York, which will be premiered as a two-part video installation at the
Kunsthaus Bregenz. A sixth billboard will feature the full cast of the
production on the set of New York, New York.
The artist holds degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand
(Johannesburg), the University of Chicago, and Columbia University (New
York). She has participated in several biennials and shown her work in
numerous group and solo exhibitions all over the world. Breitz lives and
works in Berlin and is a tenured professor at the University of Fine Arts in
Braunschweig.
KUB Publications
Identity formation and media life – two dominant and recurring themes in the
work of Candice Breitz – form the leitmotif of the artist’s solo show Candice
Breitz: The Scripted Life at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, where major existing
works will be shown alongside more recent installations, including New York,
New York, a new piece co-commissioned by the Kunsthaus Bregenz with
Performa 09. Throughout her early work in photography and collage, and
continuing to her sophisticated video installations, the Berlin-based South
African artist has consistently examined and dissected mass media and
popular culture, role play and gender construction, language and
fragmentation, reforming and appropriating them to shape her artistic
vocabulary.
Essays by Beatrice von Bismarck, Colin Richards and Okwui Enwezor will
address various aspects of Breitz’s oeuvre to form the scholarly backbone of
this catalogue raisonné of the artist’s film and video works. Each work is
introduced individually with a text by Edgar Schmitz, making this catalogue
with excellent images and an extensive, carefully compiled appendix the
most inclusive and comprehensive publication on the work of Candice Breitz
yet.
Image: Factum Misericordia, 2009. From the series Factum, 2009. Dual-Channel Installation: 2 Hard Drives. Duration: 51 minutes, 1 second. Commissioned by The Power Plant, Toronto; Commissioning Partner: Partners in Art
Press and public relations:
Birgit Albers Phone: (+43-55 74) 4 85 94-413 Fax: (+43-55 74) 4 85 94-408 b.albers@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Press conference:
Thursday, February 4, 2010, 12 noon
Opening: Friday, February 5, 2010, 8 p.m.
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Karl-Tizian-Platz Postfach 371 A-6901 Bregenz
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