Kunsthaus Graz
Candice Breitz
Whiteface
Screening and talk
Candice Breitz, Whiteface (2022), video still, courtesy of the artist
In Whiteface, South African-born artist Candice Breitz explores “whiteness,” its constructedness and privileges that have come under pressure. She appropriates voices of white people talking about “whiteness” in the media and channels them through her own white body. The perspectives Breitz has collected range from right-wing extremism and propaganda to everyday racism and the image of “good white people.”
Detached from specific individuals—who, however, remain recognizable—Breitz, in her autoethnography, focuses on the conditions of “whiteness” and examines the language with which it constructs, frames, and normalizes its power. With satirical and theatrical exaggeration, she exposes the absurdity of white people's fear of an end to their supremacy as well as the dangers of the deeply rooted fiction of race.
After the film, David Riff and Claudia Slanar talk to the artist.
Commissioned by Museum Folkwang with support from the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden
A cooperation in the context of steirischer herbst ’24
10.10., 20:00
Filmzentrum im Rechbauerkino
Rechbauerstraße 6
8010 Graz ♿
Free admission
Candice Breitz, Whiteface (2022), two-channel video, 35:23 min.
Commissioned by Museum Folkwang with support from the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden
A cooperation in the context of steirischer herbst ’24