Description
Candice Breitz (b. 1972) is based in Berlin, Germany.
The books photographed for Candice Breitz’s Ex Libris South Africa were all found by the artist on the same dusty and neglected shelf within Bikini Beach Books, Gordon’s Bay (South Africa), during a single book-browsing session in January 2009. Collectively they catalogue a diverse range of anxieties, fears, hopes and expectations pertaining to life in South Africa over nearly a century.
BIOGRAPHY_
Candice Breitz was born in Johannesburg in 1972. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 2002. She holds degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), the University of Chicago and Columbia University (New York). She has participated in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Studio Program and ran the Palais de Tokyo’s Le Pavillon residency as a visiting artist during the year 2005-2006. She has been a tenured Professor of Fine Art at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig since 2007.
In recent years, solo exhibitions of Breitz’s work have been hosted by the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Newcastle), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), De Appel (Amsterdam), Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Collection Lambert (Avignon), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), White Cube (London), Bawag Foundation (Vienna), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (Spain), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Power Plant (Toronto), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Austria), Pinchuk Art Centre (Kyiv), the Wexner Center for the Arts (Ohio), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), Standard Bank Gallery (Johannesburg) and South African National Gallery (Cape Town).
Breitz has participated in biennales in Johannesburg (1997), São Paulo (1998), Istanbul (1999), Taipei (2000), Kwangju (2000), Tirana (2001), Venice (2005), New Orleans (2008) and Singapore (2011). Selected group exhibitions include New Frontier (Sundance Film Festival, 2009), The Cinema Effect (Hirshhorn Museum + Sculpture Garden, 2008), Made in Germany (Kunstverein Hannover, 2007), Superstars (Kunsthalle Wien, 2005) and Remix: Contemporary Art and Pop (Tate Liverpool, 2002).
Breitz’s work has been acquired by museums including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (both in New York), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Fonds national d’art contemporain (France), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Munich), Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg), Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein (Vaduz), Museum of Old and New Art (Tasmania), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) and Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (Rome).
Additional information on her work can be found at: www.candicebreitz.net
Candice Breitz will represent South Africa at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Breitz, along with Mohau Modisakeng, will present a major two-person exhibition in the South African Pavilion in the Arsenale, running from 13 May to 26 November 2017.
