Candice Breitz

Candice Breitz is an internationally acclaimed artist best known for her moving image installations. Throughout her career, she has explored the dynamics by means of which an individual ‘becomes’ him or herself in relation to a larger community, be that community the immediate community that one encounters in family, or the real and imagined communities that are shaped not only by questions of national belonging, race, gender and religion, but also by the increasingly undeniable influence of mainstream media such as television, cinema and popular culture. Most recently, Breitz’s work has focused on the conditions under which empathy is produced, reflecting on a media-saturated global culture in which strong identification with fictional characters and celebrity figures runs parallel to widespread indifference to the plight of those facing real world adversities. 

Candice Breitz was born in Johannesburg in 1972. She is currently based in Berlin. Breitz holds degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Chicago and Columbia University. She has been a tenured professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig since 2007. Breitz has participated in biennales in Johannesburg (1997), São Paulo (1998), Istanbul (1999), Taipei (2000), Kwangju (2000), Tirana (2001), Venice (2005), New Orleans (2008), Singapore (2011) and Dakar (2014). Solo exhibitions of her work have been hosted by the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Austria), The Power Plant (Toronto), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Newcastle), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Modern Art Oxford, City Gallery Wellington (New Zealand), De Appel (Amsterdam), Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Bawag Foundation (Vienna), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (Spain), Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Melbourne), Standard Bank Gallery (Johannesburg) and the South African National Gallery (Cape Town). Her work has been featured at the Sundance Film Festival (2009) and the Toronto International Film Festival (2013).

Mohau Modisakeng

Mohau Modisakeng is based in South Africa. His award-winning and internationally exhibited photography, film, performance and installation work forms a personal and idiosyncratic exploration of a local narrative. Informed by a coming of age during our country’s violent political transition, his practice grapples with black male identity, body and place within a post-apartheid context. Modisakeng presents critical responses to ideas of nationhood, leadership, inequality and migrant labour that manifest visually as poignant moments of grieving and catharsis central to the current lived experience of contemporary South Africans.

Mohau Modisakeng was born in Johannesburg in 1986 and grew up in Soweto. He currently lives and works between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Modisakeng completed his undergraduate degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town in 2009. His work has been exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), MOCADA, Brooklyn New York (2015), Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria (2015), the Museum of Fine Art, Boston (2014), 21C Museum, Kentucky, Massachusetts (2014), IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2014), Saatchi Gallery, London (2012) and the Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar (2012). His work has been placed in numerous private collections both locally and internationally. His work is held by the following public collections: Johannesburg Art Gallery, IZIKO South African National Gallery, Saatchi Gallery and Zeitz MOCAA.