Candice Breitz
07 Sep - 08 Oct 2005
Pirate, composer and DJ, Candice Breitz uses darkly humorous, often subversive tactics to strike out at stereotypes and visual conventions in popular culture. Breitz's acclaimed two-part video installation Mother + Father will be shown downstairs at White Cube. In mirror sequences comprising six channels each, Breitz has edited iconic silver-screen mothers and fathers into shrill fugues of parental breakdown. In one, Faye Dunaway, Diane Keaton, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep protest and proclaim their respective maternal roles; in the second, Dustin Hoffman, Tony Danza, Harvey Keitel, Steve Martin, Donald Sutherland and Jon Voigt perform an entire spectrum of paternal frustrations. Digitally extracted from their original movie contexts, the cast members of Mother + Father are enlisted to perform new dramas of Breitz's making. The actors emerge from the artist's mixing-desk coerced into taut, abrasive compositions in which parenthood is an obvious analogy for the relationship between star and fan.
Upstairs at White Cube, Breitz will present a brand new thirty-channel video installation entitled Queen (A Portrait of Madonna) . The third in a series of intended ‘portraits' of the music that forms the soundtrack of her generation, here Breitz explores the influence of pop phenomenon Madonna. Individually filming thirty hardcore yet eclectic Italian Madonna fans (gathered via advertisements in newspapers and fan websites) singing their way through the greatest hits album Immaculate Collection , she assembles their heartfelt performances - shot in screen-test mode - into a choral grid in which moments of incidental harmony emerge from the general cacophony. A counterpart installation King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson) is being shown concurrently at Sonnabend Gallery in New York. This portrait series began with Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley ), commissioned by T-B A21, Vienna.
The juxtaposition of Mother + Father and Queen signals what Breitz has come to describe as the central dichotomy in her work, between the ‘somebodies' (global idols) - whose images she pushes to breaking point - and the ‘nobodies' (fans and consumers) - whose unabridged idolatry she allows to take over the screen.
In her earlier graphic work, Breitz took photographs and other visual fragments from popular media ( National Geographic , tabloids, porn magazines) and reworked them to create bold, disturbing images, provoking reflection on the race and gender clichés that continue to dominate and influence common knowledge.
Upstairs at White Cube, Breitz will present a brand new thirty-channel video installation entitled Queen (A Portrait of Madonna) . The third in a series of intended ‘portraits' of the music that forms the soundtrack of her generation, here Breitz explores the influence of pop phenomenon Madonna. Individually filming thirty hardcore yet eclectic Italian Madonna fans (gathered via advertisements in newspapers and fan websites) singing their way through the greatest hits album Immaculate Collection , she assembles their heartfelt performances - shot in screen-test mode - into a choral grid in which moments of incidental harmony emerge from the general cacophony. A counterpart installation King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson) is being shown concurrently at Sonnabend Gallery in New York. This portrait series began with Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley ), commissioned by T-B A21, Vienna.
The juxtaposition of Mother + Father and Queen signals what Breitz has come to describe as the central dichotomy in her work, between the ‘somebodies' (global idols) - whose images she pushes to breaking point - and the ‘nobodies' (fans and consumers) - whose unabridged idolatry she allows to take over the screen.
In her earlier graphic work, Breitz took photographs and other visual fragments from popular media ( National Geographic , tabloids, porn magazines) and reworked them to create bold, disturbing images, provoking reflection on the race and gender clichés that continue to dominate and influence common knowledge.