The praised South African video artist Candice Breitz, who has been described as “sending ripples of discomfort through the art world,” has one piece of advice to offer artists: “Get yourself the hell out of your zone of comfort.” In this short video, she stresses the importance of removing yourself from that which feels easy in order to fully grasp “just how conventional your own relationship to the world is.”
“Throw yourself into conversations where it’s difficult to make yourself understood, or where you’re struggling to understand somebody else.” To step outside of one’s own context, Breitz feels, is to also a way of becoming aware of one’s own limitations of storytelling: “When people have understood the relative nature of telling stories, they tend to be able to tell better stories.”
Candice Breitz (b. 1972) is a South African artist, who works primarily in video and photography. Breitz uses found video footage, appropriating video from popular culture, and came to international prominence with a suite of group video portraits depicting fans singing songs by icons such as Madonna (‘Queen’, 2005) and John Lennon (‘Working Class Hero’, 2006). In recent years, the artist has – with works such as ‘Love Story’ (2016) – turned her focus to the production of empathy and identification in today’s highly mediated culture. Her work has been exhibited internationally at prominent venues such as White Cube in London, South African National Gallery in Cape Town, Kunsthaus Bregenz in Bregenz, The Power Plant in Toronto, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk. Candice Breitz’s work has been acquired by prestigious museums such as The Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, both in New York City. In 2017 she represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale with Mohau Modisakeng. She lives in Berlin, where she has been a tenured professor at the Braunschweig University of Art since 2007. For more see: http://www.candicebreitz.net/
Candice Breitz was interviewed by Christian Lund in Berlin in April 2018.
Camera: Jacob Solbakken
Edited by: Klaus Elmer
Produced by: Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2018
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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