Candice Breitz / South Africa

South Africa born 1972, works in Germany 2002–

Evoking the global scale of the international refugee crisis, Wilson Must Go, 2016, a seven-channel video installation by Candice Breitz, evolves out of lengthy interviews with six individuals who have fled their countries in response to a range of oppressive conditions: Sarah Mardini, who escaped war-torn Syria; José Maria João, a former child soldier from Angola; Mamy Maloba Langa, a survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Shabeena Saveri, an Indian transgender activist; Luis Nava Molero, a political dissident from Venezuela; and Farah Abdi Mohamed, a young atheist from Somalia. The interviews were conducted in the cities where each individual is seeking or has been granted asylum (Berlin, New York and Cape Town).

The personal narratives shared by the interviewees are articulated twice by Wilson Must Go. In the first space of the installation, re-performed fragments from the six interviews are woven into a fast-paced montage featuring Hollywood actors Alec Baldwin and Julianne Moore. In a second space that is accessible only via the first, the original interviews are projected in their full duration and complexity. Suspending viewers between the gritty firsthand accounts of individuals who would typically remain nameless and faceless in the media, and an accessible drama featuring two actors who are the very embodiment of visibility, Wilson Must Go, reflects on a media-saturated culture in which strong identification with fictional characters and celebrity figures often runs parallel to indifference to the plight of those facing real world adversity.

BIO

Breitz has held numerous solo exhibitions over the course of her twenty-year career, including at; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2009; the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, in 2012; and the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, in 2014. This culminated in a comprehensive mid-career survey exhibition staged in 2016 by the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. Breitz has participated in international biennales, including Venice in 2005 and 2017; Istanbul in 1999; and Sao Paulo in 1998, among others.