A disorientating dialogue

Candice Breitz: Re-animations Candice Breitz’s installation, ‘Double Karen’ consists of two televisions facing each other in a stairway, one in front of you, the other behind as you rise. The former TV loops those moments in the Carpenters’ ‘Close to You’ in which Karen Carpenter sings “me”; the latter loops Karen singing “you” from the same song. Similarly, ‘Double Olivia’ is two TVs facing each other, in which loops of Olivia Newton–John singing “I”, “my”, “mine” and “you” from ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ are played. Such use of personal pronouns lends the installations a stange potency. While the viewer stands within hearing of both “I” and “you”, it is impossible to view both screens simultaneously, and yet both screens continue to call to the viewer in the middle, unsure which way to turn. The rest of Breitz’s five installations do not work as well. ‘Diorama’ is a reconstruction of a sitting room with nine screens arranged about the room, with each screen looping one of nine characters from the TV series Dallas saying a phrase, for example, “But what about love…?”. It is undoubtedly sensational; the arrangement of the sets again leaves the viewer disorientated while the volume is also disorientatingly loud, but the intimacy and the involvement of the ‘Double Karen’ and ‘Double Olivia’ installations is lacking. In an essay on Breitz’s work, Jennifer Allen compares her work to the “experiments” of Arnulf Rainer. Breitz’s work is indeed experimental as a scientific study might be experimental. Though visually striking, the impression as a whole left me questioning what exactly we can classify as art.ARCHIVE: 1st Week MT2003