Candice Breitz (born in Johannesburg, 1972) is a Berlin-based
artist. Her moving image installations have been shown
internationally. Throughout Breitz’s career, she has explored the
dynamics by means of which an individual becomes him or herself in
relation to a larger community, be that the immediate community
that one encounters in family, or the real and imagined
communities that are shaped not only by questions of national
belonging, race, gender and religion, but also by the increasingly
undeniable influence of mainstream media such as television,
cinema and other popular culture. Most recently, Breitz’s work has
focused on the conditions under which empathy is produced,
reflecting on a media-saturated global culture in which strong
identification with fictional characters and celebrity figures
runs parallel to widespread indifference to the plight of those
facing real world adversity. In 2022, she completed
The White Noise Trilogy
, a trio of multichannel video installations that includes
Love Story
(2016),
TLDR
(2017) and
Whiteface
(2022).
Breitz holds degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand
(Johannesburg), the University of Chicago and Columbia University
(NYC). She has participated in the Whitney Museum’s Independent
Studio Program and led the Palais de Tokyo’s
‘Le Pavillon’
residency as a visiting artist during the year 2005-2006. She has
been a professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in
Braunschweig since 2007.
Solo exhibitions of Breitz’s work have been held at the Tate
Liverpool, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), Museum
Folkwang (Essen), Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, National Gallery of
Canada (Ottawa), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Kunsthaus
Bregenz, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), The Power Plant (Toronto),
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Modern Art Oxford, De Appel Foundation
(Amsterdam), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead), MUDAM
/ Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg), Moderna Museet
(Stockholm), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Pinchuk Art Centre
(Kyiv), Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Bawag Foundation
(Vienna), Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, MUSAC / Museo de Arte
Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (Spain), FMAV / Fondazione Modena
Arti Visive (Modena), Wexner Center for the Arts (Ohio), O.K
Center for Contemporary Art Upper Austria (Linz), ACMI / The
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Melbourne), Collection
Lambert en Avignon, Sonnabend Gallery (New York), FACT /
Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (Liverpool), Neuer
Berliner Kunstverein (Berlin), Arken Museum of Modern Art
(Ishøj-Copenhagen), Blaffer Art Museum (Houston), Void
Contemporary Art Space (Derry), EMMA / Espoo Museum of Modern Art
(Espoo, Finland), West Den Haag (Den Haag), Iziko South African
National Gallery (Cape Town), Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Baltimore
Museum of Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (Auckland), the
Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco), Staatliche Kunsthalle
Baden-Baden and Centrale for Contemporary Art (Brussels), among
other institutions.
In 2017, Breitz represented South Africa at the 57th Venice
Biennale (alongside Mohau Modisakeng). In the past, she has also
participated in biennials and triennials in Johannesburg (1997),
São Paulo (1998), Istanbul (1999), Taipei (2000), Gwangju (2000),
Tirana (2001), Göteborg (2003 + 2009), Venice (2005 + 2017), New
Orleans (2008), Singapore (2011), Dakar (2014), Melbourne (2017),
Cleveland (2018), Sharjah (2019), Aichi (2019), Rabat (2019) and
Prague (2020). Her work has been featured at the Sundance Film
Festival (New Frontier, 2009), at the Toronto International Film
Festival (David Cronenberg: Transformation, 2013) and in the Gorki
Theatre’s Herbstsalon (
4. Berliner Herbstsalon: De-heimatize It!
, Berlin, 2019).
Selected group exhibitions include
The Cinema Effect
(Hirshhorn Museum + Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2008),
South Africa: the art of a nation
(British Museum, London, 2016),
Laughing in a Foreign Language
(The Hayward, London, 2008),
Made in Germany
(Kunstverein Hannover, 2007),
Superstars
(Kunsthalle Wien, 2005),
CUT: Film as Found Object
(Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 2004),
Continuity + Transgression
(National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 2002),
Thank You for the Music
(Kiasma Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, 2012),
Rollenbilder–Rollenspiele
(Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 2011),
Performa
(New York, 2009),
Contemporary Outlook: Seeing Songs
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2009),
Remix: Contemporary Art and Pop
(Tate Liverpool, 2002),
Looking at You
(Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, 2001), and
Michael Jackson: On the Wall
(National Portrait Gallery, London, 2018).
Works by Breitz have been acquired by museums including the Museum
of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (both in New
York), Tate Modern (London), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
(Humlebæk), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National
Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus
(Munich), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), FNAC / Fonds national
d’art contemporain (France), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Hamburger
Kunsthalle (Hamburg), M+ / Museum of Visual Culture (Hong Kong),
the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Milwaukee Art
Museum, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, MUDAM / Musée d'Art Moderne
Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg), MUSAC / Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
de Castilla y León (León, Spain), Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein
(Vaduz), MONA / Museum of Old and New Art (Tasmania), QAGGOMA /
Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)
and MAXXI / Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (Rome).
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