SWEAT, 2018

video

Sweat (2018) is a companion film to Breitz’s thirteen-channel video installation TLDR (2017). In their own words, ten members of a community of Cape Town-based sex workers—all of whom are affiliated as activists with SWEAT (the Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce)—offer a series of anecdotes and insights into their lives and labour.

Their ten-tweet-long statements (each statement has a length of no more than 1400 characters) are drawn from a series of longer interviews (which were shot in Cape Town in February 2017). The full interviews can be viewed on Vimeo.

Featuring Zoe Black, Connie, Duduzile Dlamini, Emmah, Gabbi, Regina High, Jenny, Jowi, Tenderlove, Nosipho ‘Provocative’ Vidima. Conceived and produced in dialogue with SWEAT (Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce), Cape Town, South Africa.

Trailer single-channel video

Candice Breitz, Sweat, 2018, Single-channel video, colour, sound, loop, approx. 25 minutes, Edition of 10 + 2AP

Single-channel video, colour, sound, loop, approx. 25 minutes, Edition of 10 + 2AP

Ten-channel video

Ten-channel video, colour, sound, loop, approx. 25 minutes
Installation view FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology), Liverpool, 2019

INDEX:

Video

Portrait

Sexwork

Emancipation

Africa

Freedom of Speech

Film

Interview

Activism

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Candice Breitz

**I know you think I’m crazy, but I’m not, I’m not!, 1938-2019**

**I'm Your Man (A Portrait of Leonard Cohen), 2017**

**Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon), 2006**

**Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley), 2005**

**King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson), 2005**

Biography

Candice Breitz, born in 1972 in Johannesburg, is 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 is based in Berlin and, since 2007, holds a professorship for fine arts at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK) and in the same year was awarded with the Prix International d´Art Contemporain I Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. Her work has been featured in international group shows in institutions such as Haus der Kunst, München (2023), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2022), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2021), the Jewish Museum, New York City (2020), the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2016), De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam (2001). Solo exhibitions of Breitz’s work have been shown at Fotografiska, Berlin (2023), Tate Liverpool (2022), Museum Folkwang, Essen (2022), Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2016), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2010), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009) , Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2005) among others. Next to various group exhibitions Breitz has participated in biennales in Johannesburg (1997), São Paulo (1998), Istanbul (1999), Taipei (2000), Kwangju (2000), Tirana (2001), Venice (2005), New Orleans (2008), Göteborg (2003 + 2009), Singapore (2011) and Dakar (2014). She was invited to the South African Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).

Full Biography

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