Candice Breitz

On Tuesday October 19th, Candice Breitz graced the art community of VCU with her lecture and a sizable sample of her video works. Her speaking style, peppered with humor and culture references, seems to match her work. Both are easily accessible, honest, yet loaded with meaning. Brietz explained that she uses popular culture to interact with people whom she may not otherwise have anything in common with. Working in both found and created video, Brietz says she is interested in the relationships between the audience, who has no public voice, and the public personalities.

Brietz broke her lecture into two portions, and I'll focus on the first section, her found video work. She gave examples of multi-screen displays, which loop brief takes from famous music videos. She selects basic vocabulary units, that is single syllables, and plays them repetitiously. The performer is stuck in this eternal moment ; Brietz calls it the "common denominator" of language. This series of work lifts the material from its context, which is Brietz claims good work with found material should accomplish.

Breitz went on to a bolder social commentary with her Mother/Father works. She assembled in clips, from various famous feature length films, a collection of "mothers", and the quotes they've given in their respective roles. All though she explained it in her lecture, the works takes a negative strike at the media's replacement as parents. Brietz explained that, no matter how we may feel about the situation, mainstream media has become and "opponent of the mother/father structure." We are learning our identity roles from what we see on television.

Breitz made clear that she is not interested in cynicism or making light of popular culture, because she understands how much pleasure can draw from such. I felt her work to be effective in underscoring the culture construct of mass media, which crosses many boundaries we thought couldn't be crossed, and maybe some that shouldn't have been.