Candice Breitz
Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley) 2005 Exhibition
Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg Thirty-Channel Installation
Producer: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Director: Candice Breitz Coordinator: Colin Smikle und Alexander Fahl Casting: Colin Smikle Camera: Yoliswa Gärtig Sound: Max Schneider Cutting: Alexander Fahl Cutting-Assistance: Janne Schäfer und Julia Pfeiffer Catering: Alligator Head Recorded at the Gee Jam Studios, Port Antonio, Jamaika, March 2005. Commissioned by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation. Supported by cine plus, Berlin.
Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley) [2005] Das Schiff, Basel. ©Alex Fahl
Having heard countless Jamaicans evoke the way in which Bob Marley has affected their lives, Breitz decided that it was time, twenty years after Legend (the best-selling reggae album of all time) was released, to ‘return the album to Jamaica, in the same spirit that the Elgin marbles might one day be returned to Greece.’ Central to the reggae aesthetic, is the understanding that one original song, rhythm or melody, can give rise to any number of equally innovative versions, covers or remixes. Breitz invited thirty Jamaicans from all walks of life to sing their versions of Legend in a professional recording studio in Port Antonio, Jamaica. Each participant was invited to individually re-perform the entire Legend album from beginning to end. The resulting thirty performances are screened simultaneously on a wall of thirty monitors. Stubbornly insisting on the exact format of the original fourteen-track album, as if to acknowledge the undeniable role that marketing has played in the packaging of the Marley myth, Breitz’s Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley) strips away the voice of Marley and the familiar musical arrangements, so that ultimately Marley remains present in the work only through the voices of his fans. The work thus invites us to imagine a charismatic cultural icon not as a monolithic and isolated figure, but rather as a complex composite of those whose stories he has told and those whose lives continue to be inflected through his music. Legend recognizes Marley’s continuing impact on Jamaican culture, but also considers the complex and delicate machinery of fan worship that generates every legend: the resulting installation is an a cappella portrait of the man who remains remarkable for having become the first third world superstar. Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley) was shot in Port Antonio, Jamaica, in early 2005.
Candice Breitz, born 1972 in Johannesburg, Südafrika, lives in Berlin.
www.galeriafancescakaufmann.com
Adel Abdessemed/Silvia Ocougne
Dave Allen
Alfred Behrens
Maria Blondeel
Reinhard Blum/Uwe Bressnik
Jens Brand
Candice Breitz
Building Transmissions & Douglas Park
Janet Cardiff/George Bures Miller
Nicolas Collins
Alvin Curran
Joanna Dudley
[dy'na:mo]
Ulrich Eller
David First
Nina Fischer/Maroan el Sani & Robert Lippok
Terry Fox
Bernhard Gál
Seppo Gründler
Gut & Rist aka Gutarist
Carl Michael von Hauswolff & freq_out orchestra
Susan Hiller
Robert Jacobsen
Rolf Julius
Georg Klein/Steffi Weismann
Katjia Kölle
Christina Kubisch
Hans Peter Kuhn
Tilman Küntzel
Kalle Laar
Donatella Landi
Bernhard Leitner
Aernout Mik
Robin Minard
Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga
Helen Mirra
Michael Muschner
Carsten Nicolai
Andreas Oldörp
Finnbogi Pétursson
Werner Reiterer
Robin Rimbaud aka scanner
Julian Rosefeldt
Klara Schilliger/Valerian Maly
society of algorithm [Guy van Belle/Akihiro Kubota]
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag
tamtam [Sam Auinger/Hannes Strobl]
Ana Torfs
Edwin van der Heide
Maurice van Tellingen
Stephen Vitiello
Kris Vleeschouwer
Heinz Weber
Achim Wollscheid
Miki Yui
Artur Zmijewski

Liste ausblenden
deutsch