Candice Breitz ,1999
Provenienza : Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan; Private collection, Italy
Exhibited : New York, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 16 November - 10 December, 2000 (installation of seven projections exhibited); 6th International Biennale of Istanbul, 1999 (installation consisting of seven videos exhibited); Milan, Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Candice Breitz: Babel Series, 2000; Geneva, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Candice Breitz: Babel Series, 1999, 16 June - 21 September, 2000 (installation consisting of seven videos exhibited); Linz, OK Centre for Contemporary Art, Cuttings, 10 May - 15 July, 2001 (installation consisting of seven videos exhibited); Göteburg, 2nd International Biennale for Contemporary Art, 24 May - 24 August, 2003(installation consisting of seven videos exhibited); Stockholm, Galeri Roger Björkholmen, Candice Breitz: Diptychs, 2 October - 30 October, 2004 (another example exhibited); Kingston (Jamaica), Bob Marley Museum, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA 21) presents Candice Breitz: LEGEND (A Portrait of Bob Marley) and Other Works, 4 December, 2005 - 3 January, 2006 (installation consisting of seven videos exhibited).
Literature : D. Hunt, Fighting Words, Flash Art International, Anno 33, no. 211, March - April, 2000
Note : The present lot is a diptych from The Babel Series. These works are less widely exhibited by the artist and focus on the relationship between two of the figures exhibited in the larger installation of seven looping DVDs originally exhibited in 1999 at the 6th Istanbul Biennale. ‘For me the most provocative tale dealing with the original of multiple languages is the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, in which God punishes man for his vanity and grandiosity by violently denying him the ability to understand the languages of others. When I made the "Babel Series" installation in 1999, this violent failure, the failure of language to function as the glue coalescing different cultures (which is still the case now as much as it was then) became a compelling point of reference for me. Many key members of the twentieth-century avant-garde were preoccupied with the possibility of a universal language that might communicate above and beyond the specificity of linguistic and natural references...With the "Babel Series" I wanted to make a work that would pay homage to such endeavors while at the same time recognizing the extent to which any notion of pure language has become increasingly hard to maintain. In this work [short loops] appropriated and isolated from popular music videos are played back simultaneously [No, No, No and Yeh, Yeh, Yeh in the present lot]. The most primal units of language are regurgitated by the ambassadors of MTV, this being a medium which has succeeded - beyond the wildest dreams of the twentieth-century avant-garde - in forging a language that is accessible to people from vastly different contexts.' (Candice Breitz taken from an interview with Rosanne Alstatt, Kunst-Bulletin, June 2001)
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