Exhibition at Kunsten of Works About Parenting and Fan Culture by Acclaimed Video Artist

This spring, the South African artist Candice Breitz will exhibit two of her most striking installations at Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg. Deploying recognisable elements from popular culture, the artist takes a trenchant look at the ideals, norms, and parental roles in mainstream entertainment, questioning how fan culture shapes our individual identities and communities.

Both works have been loaned from Louisiana’s collection as part of a an ongoing collaboration between the two museums.

The exhibition runs from 8 February to 17 August 2025.

How do fan culture and idolatry shape our self-knowledge? How do social media impact societal norms? And what impact do films, TV shows, and music have on the way we view our own relationships?

These are just some of the questions we will get the opportunity to consider in Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg’s exhibition of two significant works by the South African artist Candice Breitz (b. 1972): an artist known for her social-minded video installations and photographic works.

“Using references from TV series, films, and music, Breitz shows us how collective identity and individual experience are formed and intertwined. She also questions how each of us is influenced by ideals and norms in mainstream entertainment and on social media,” says Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen, curator of the exhibition.

Parents’ stories and fan culture

The exhibition features the works Mother + Father (2005) and Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon) (2006), both loaned from Louisiana’s collection as part of an ongoing collaboration between the two museums.

The works look at the extent to which the music we listen to and the films we watch reflect and shape both our close relationships and our self-knowledge as individuals. The works investigate the psychological dimension of our relationship with the media. How are we emotionally entangled in, and sometimes manipulated by the popular culture we consume? That is Candice Breitz’s question.

“Much of my work tackles the question of how we become who we are, and to what extent the process is influenced by the values that the mainstream media sell us. Increasingly we learn who we are from cultural products – not merely from our parents and our immediate social context.” She suggests that the media have thereby gradually started to share – and in some cases taken over – the complex task of our social education.

Iconic work in new format

In Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon) (2006), 25 John Lennon fans sing the entire Working Class Hero album on separate screens as a tribute to the music icon. Together, the videos form a collective choir and a common voice. For the first time the screens will be scattered throughout the exhibition space: a brand new format devised in collaboration with the artist.

In Mother + Father, parental roles are portrayed using clips from Hollywood productions. The installation looks incisively at the limitations of parental narratives as depicted in the media and how, over time, these stereotypical narratives become accepted as common norms.

Remarkably relevant, even two decades later

Both works first saw the light of day 20 years ago. Nonetheless, as the curator points out, the works are strikingly relevant in 2024:

“There is something even more relevant about the works today, two decades on, at a time when family structures and norms are changing, and when we have greater access to our icons than ever before. According to Candice Breitz, our close ‘relationships’ with fictional characters and famous people stand in sharp contrast to the distanced relationship we have with the lives and suffering of real people – not only in our own social circle but also in the world as a whole.”

The result of several years’ collaboration

The two video works in the exhibition are on loan from Louisiana’s collection. The exhibition is the result of several years of collaboration between Kunsten and Louisiana. Since 2020, through collection exchanges and joint projects the two museums have been exploring the potential for national museum communities. The aim is to create a broader platform for experiences of art in Denmark.

The exhibition runs from 8 February to 17 August 2025.

To find out more about the exhibition, visit www.kunsten.dk/breitz.

Photos: Mother + Father (2005) by Candice Breitz.

About Candice Breitz
The artist Candice Breitz (b. 1972, Johannesburg) is known for her trenchant, socially relevant practice. Her works examine how our individual identities are shaped by communities, be it families, national communities or cultural affiliations.

Breitz’s works have been exhibited at major museums throughout the world, including Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), the Power Plant (Toronto), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. In 2017, Candice Breitz represented South Africa at the 57th Venice Biennale. Her works also feature in the collections of leading museums: for example, the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and Tate Modern in London.