Candice Breitz: Digest

Nostalgic installation at the Goodman Gallery by Candice Breitz.

The show consisted of a selection of 1,001 videotapes, encased in black acrylic and arranged on shallow shelves resembling the displays in video rental stores. Each box has one work, in the original font of the original cover, to imply what may be inside. It was fun walking round spotting the words and guessing the titles. I liked the fact they seemed to be displayed in genres like in a store.

The fact there are 1.001 titles refers to The Arabian Nights where the 1,001st wife of the sultan who avoided the fate of her predecessors of being beheaded by telling her husband stories every night for 1,001 nights. The power of narrative and storytelling.

You are left with the mystery as to what was actually in the boxes. The pendant in me hopes it is the original tapes preserved as objects however I also fear the tapes may be in the wrong boxes as they were in many of our collections.

I was amused that the press release explains video tapes and rental stores for the young. Those of us who are a bit older would just have got the references straight away!

Closes 20 January 2022

 

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