The following texts on Love Story are included in this pdf:

Texts in English:

Beckstette, Sven. ‘We Are the Others. On Candice Breitz’s Love Story,’ from: Groos, Ulrike and Wurzbacher, Carolin (editors). Candice Breitz. Love Story. (Bielefeld / Stuttgart: Kerber Verlag / Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2016) exhibition catalogue.

Koch, Alexander, ‘Candice Breitz: Love Story,’ published online at: http://www.kow- berlin.info/exhibitions/candice_breitz

Whitley, Zoé, ‘Oh! Oh! Love: Candice Breitz’s Monologues for Troubled Times,’ from: MacGarry, Lucy (curator) and Law-Viljoen, Bronwyn (editor). Candice Breitz + Mohau Modisakeng. (Venice: South African Pavilion, 2017) exhibition catalogue.

Texts in German:

Beckstette, Sven. ‘Wir sind die Anderen: Über Candice Breitz’ Love Story,’ from: Groos, Ulrike and Wurzbacher, Carolin (editors). Candice Breitz. Love Story. (Bielefeld / Stuttgart: Kerber Verlag / Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2016) exhibition catalogue.

Koch, Alexander, ‘Candice Breitz: Love Story,’ published online at: http://www.kow- berlin.info/exhibitions/candice_breitz

Online Viewing:

Additionally, this pdf contains information regarding how additional footage from Love Story can be viewed online.

Love Story

[Texts in English]

58 59

SVEN BECKSTETTE Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), the American philoso- The question of what means might be enlisted to create solidarity second space, all of unknown people—three women and three pher observes that “we-intentions” create interpersonal bonds and a sense of connectivity is also the focus of Candice Breitz’s men—from a variety of cultural and national backgrounds. They WE ARE THE OTHERS. but at the same time facilitate immoral actions, as other groups expansive video installation Love Story. Much like Rorty, Breitz too are set in front of a green screen, seated frontally and repre- ON CANDICE BREITZ’S are automatically excluded by the phrase, groups to whom this sees cinema, and specifically the Hollywood blockbuster—its nar- sented slightly larger than life. Their monologues can be experi- we-reference does not apply: “I claim that the force of ‘us’ is, rative forms and its manipulation of our emotions—as a potential enced through the headphones available for use on the seating. LOVE STORY typically, contrastive in the sense that it contrasts with a ‘they’ vehicle for the creation of empathy. However, unlike Rorty, in Love Certain passages that they speak are strongly reminiscent of the which is also made up of human beings—the wrong sort of human Story the artist draws attention to the distance that separates the scripts performed by Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin. The stories beings.”2 It is possible to transfer this claim directly to the racist first-person narrative of lived experience, from the fictional restag- that are shared by these six people evidently serve as the source “We are the people”—this slogan is inseparably linked to the use of the slogan “we are the people” in Clausnitz. ing of that narrative as a product of the culture industry. The work for the lines delivered by the Hollywood celebrities. Each wears at so-called Monday Demonstrations of 1989, which marked the Rorty’s primary intention is to show how solidarity can be achieved invites empathetic engagement with others who are unknown, least one accessory—a ring, a pin, a bangle—objects that we rec- beginning of the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). more enduringly—a process that, in his opinion, can only occur while at the same time didactically drawing attention to the ognize at this point, having already seen them worn by Baldwin At those peaceful protest marches in Leipzig, the use of the word through empathic recognition of the other as a sensitive, suffer- mechanisms that govern processes of identification. and Moore. “people” was directed against the country’s ruling Socialist Unity ing being: “The view I am offering says that there is such a thing The installation consists of two parts. In the front space, there is a The contemporary historical context of Love Story is the migratory Party (SED). It was hence a call for more democracy, in protest of as moral progress, and that this progress is indeed in the direction projection surface of cinematic dimensions, before which a bench movement to Europe of groups of people—referred to as the a government that was viewed as illegitimate. The same phrase of greater human solidarity. But that solidarity is not thought of as invites visitors to take a seat and watch. On the screen we view “refugee crisis”—from the regions of North Africa, the Middle has, however, recently acquired a contrary meaning: in 2014 it recognition of a core self, the human essence, in all human beings. constantly alternating shots of Hollywood actors Alec Baldwin and East, and Southeast Asia plagued by terrorism and civil war. An surfaced prominently at demonstrations staged by the right-wing Rather, it is thought of as the ability to see more and more tradi- Julianne Moore, who—mainly shown in over-sized, half-length enormous increase in such displacement was registered in the populist Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occi- tional differences (of tribe, religion, race, customs, and the like) as portraits—gaze directly at the viewer. They sit before a mono- summer of 2015. Initially triggering a wave of citizen involvement dent (Pegida) movement in Dresden. Via use of the slogan in this unimportant when compared with similarities with respect to pain chrome green screen, a cinematic device typically used so that and, in many cases, self-sacrificing offers of help in Germany, the context, participants sought to underline their sovereignty in a bid and humiliation—the ability to think of people wildly different actors can be inserted into other shots or computer simulations. situation has now changed—above all after attacks, allegedly by to disassociate themselves from a government led by Chancellor from ourselves as included in the range of ‘us.’”3 There are no props, costumes, masks, or any exaggerated make- migrants, on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015—into a Angela Merkel, which, unlike the People’s Parliament of the GDR, Narrative has the potential to play an important role in creating up. Occasionally, the two are visible in the image as full-length debate on integration, immigration, sexism, Islamization, and politi- had been freely elected via a democratic voting process.1 greater solidarity, says Rorty. He defines “narrative” broadly, to figures, seated on a director’s chair and surrounded by lighting cal and media representation marked by prejudice. This discus- On February 18, 2016, a crowd of approximately one hundred include literature, documentary forms, and above all cinema: “This stands and reflectors. They are not engaged in a continuous dia- sion is increasingly being shaped by protagonists who have vested people chanted “we are the people” in conjunction with the racist process of coming to see other human beings as ‘one of us’ rather logue but speak one after the other. After a while it also becomes interests in dividing society: at elections in three states in March cry “foreigners out” in an attempt to prevent the accommodation than as ‘them’ is a matter of detailed description of what un- apparent that the texts are being spoken from a first-person per- 2016, the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) of refugees in the village of Clausnitz, Saxony. In this context, the familiar people are like and of redescription of what we ourselves spective, yet they do not result in a coherent plot: they jump succeeded, from a standing start, in entering the state parliaments slogan acquires a xenophobic emphasis, expressing a misanthrop- are like. This is a task not for theory but for genres such as ethnog- backward and forward between different contexts—Berlin, with results in the lower double-digit range. ic hatred of refugee families from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, and raphy, the journalist’s report, the comic book, the docudrama, and, Mumbai, Cape Town, New York, Damascus, Kinshasa, Caracas, For Love Story, Breitz responds to this at times heated debate by Lebanon. Three days later, in Bautzen (also in Saxony), a vacant especially, the novel. Fiction like that of Dickens, Olive Schreiner, and Lubumbashi—and a range of themes such as war, homo- not merely referring to the current refugee problematic but by hotel that had been earmarked to begin housing asylum seekers or Richard Wright gives us the details about kinds of suffering phobia, faith, and atheism. The various strands of the narrative viewing issues of “flight,” “expulsion,” and “displacement” from in March 2016 was set on fire. Overall, the number of attacks on being endured by people to whom we had previously not attended. are nevertheless woven together via the recurrence—across the a global perspective. The work originates out of a series of inter- refugee facilities increased fivefold during 2015. This is not an Fiction like that of Choderlos de Laclos, Henry James, or Nabokov range of fragmented stories—of life threats, abuse, and ultimately views that Breitz conducted in three countries (Germany, South eastern German problem alone: the trend toward growing vio- gives us the details about what sorts of cruelty we ourselves are flight. It is also noticeable that the actors wear different accessories: Africa, and the United States) with six individuals who have been lence is also clearly recognizable in Saarland and North Rhine- capable of, and thereby lets us redescribe ourselves. That is why Alec Baldwin at various moments appears wearing sunglasses or forced to abandon their home countries in response to a variety Westphalia, among other western German states. the novel, the movie, and the TV program have, gradually but wrist accessories, while Julianne Moore switches between a series of adverse circumstances: Farah Abdi Mohamed, for instance, left Following Richard Rorty (1931–2007), the slogan “we are the steadily, replaced the sermon and the treatise as the principal of bracelets and rings. When viewers walk beyond the projection Somalia to seek asylum in Berlin because he feared being killed as people” may be understood as a “we-intention.” In his book vehicles of moral change and progress.”4 in the front space, they encounter six additional projections in a an atheist in a country dominated by Islamic extremism. Sarah 60 61

Ezzat Mardini, a young athletic swimmer, also fled to Berlin hoping In the case of Moore and Baldwin, we encounter people who are specific but perhaps less heroic or exciting story of the concrete 1: On the use of the slogan “We are the people” in populist rhetoric, Jan-Werner Müller writes: “Populists claim that for a better future in Germany than in her home country, war-torn conventionally attractive, describing experiences that are relatively individual gets lost during this process of adaptation to Holly- ‘We are the people!’ But what they mean—and this is always Syria. Professor Luis Ernesto Nava Molero taught at the Universi- easy to follow, delivered in fluent American English. These stories wood’s conventions. a moral rather than an empirical statement (and thus a simultaneous declaration of political war)—is: ‘We—and we dad Simón Bolívar in Caracas. He faced antagonism and threats in are sometimes brutal in their cruelty, and move us emotionally as a Against this background, Love Story confronts viewers with moral alone—represent the people.’ Hence all those who think Venezuela not only on account of his homosexuality, but primarily result of their dramatic presentation. On a rational level, however, questions that individuals can only answer for themselves: In whom differently, whether counter-demonstrators on the streets as an outspoken opponent of President Hugo Chávez, which led it is clear to us that Baldwin and Moore have not experienced this do I invest my attention and my time, and with whom do I identify? or members of the Bundestag, are stamped as illegitimate, regardless of how high a percentage of the votes an official him to seek safety in New York. This is also where Dr. Shabeena suffering firsthand. The interviews with the refugees, in contrast, Am I interested in the individual suffering of others, and does it representative of the people gained to enter the House.” Francis Saveri, who recognized her transgender identity at a very are lengthy in duration, at times repetitive, and occasionally dif- make a difference if their fate is conveyed to me impersonally? Translated from Jan-Werner Müller, Was ist Populismus? Ein Essay (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2016), 18f. early age, found refuge, leaving the city of Mumbai to escape the ficult to understand. A greater deal of effort is required to engage Which expressions of empathy are real: those that famous faces 2: Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cam- stigmatization and threat of criminal prosecution that apply to with their accounts, which nevertheless remain more shocking offer, or the revelations of unknown individuals? And what, to bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), non-normative sexuality in the Indian context. José Maria João was than the fictional versions, as their tentative search for the right come back to Rorty, does empathy and an attitude of solidarity 190. 3: Ibid., 192. captured and abused as a child soldier during the Angolan Civil words heightens our awareness of the actual agonies that the mean in this context? We, we are the others. 4: Ibid., xvi. War; he eventually fled his military captors, running from Angola people in front of us have had to endure. to Namibia, and eventually arrived in Cape Town. Along with her On the basis of Love Story, it is possible to observe, on the one Stuttgart, Spring 2016 three children, Mamy Maloba Langa likewise made her way to hand, the change in perception that occurs when Hollywood actors South Africa, at the mercy of smugglers. Because her husband had reanimate the experiences of others and interpret them using the worked as a bodyguard to Jean-Pierre Bemba, she was no longer repertoire of dramatic techniques they have honed. That is why safe after his opponent Joseph Kabila was elected president of Breitz recorded Moore and Baldwin in surroundings that were as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and left Kinshasa shortly neutral as possible, where the only focus is on their facial expres- after her house was stormed and Kabila’s thugs raped her. sions and gestures, and on their vocal emphases. The montage of The filmed interviews in which the six refugees recount their in- sequences, by means of which narrative threads start to emerge, dividual stories last several hours each, and can be experienced in alternates between close-up perspectives and medium long shots, their full length in the context of Love Story. After recording the making constant reference to the setting of the shoot, and serving interviews, Breitz selected key strands and fragments of each nar- as a constant reminder that we are watching actors at work. On the rative, which she abbreviated and condensed to develop scripts other hand, we observe how the dramatic conventions of block- that would be fed to Baldwin and Moore for the fictional mon- buster cinema translate a real event or “true story,” since a movie tage. During their interviews, the artist asked each refugee to needs to address as many viewers as possible in order to comply wear a personal object associated with their experience of flight. with the economic constraints of the film industry—and aims to She later borrowed these largely unobtrusive objects from the entertain as well. Even films that are based on a true occurrence interviewees—a silver ring, a plastic armband, various bracelets, a therefore have to dramatize reality by rehearsing familiar narrative bronze pin—asking the professional actors to wear the accessory tropes—for example, via the incorporation of a “love story”— belonging to the relevant individual as they channeled each re- and to tout with famous actors. Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin spective narrative during their shoots. represent these principles in a prototypical manner—because they For viewers, the turning point in the perception of the fictive and have recently appeared before the camera together as a couple, documentary films occurs when they pass from the front section for example, in the movie Still Alice (2014), a drama about a of the installation to the back. A comparison between the original woman who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, for which Moore interviews and their interpretation by the actors makes clear how won an Oscar. It is true that such a film about taboo subjects or a story and our perception of it are affected as the narrator shifts. sociopolitical deficits reaches worldwide audiences. However, the CANDICE BREITZ LOVE STORY

Alexander Koch

“Alec, you’re famous! People will listen to you,” says Alec Baldwin to himself, a few mo- ments before sharing the details of his arrest in Cairo, his journey to Italy on a desperately overcrowded fishing boat, and his eventual arrival in the unfamiliar city of Berlin on a rainy day in September 2015. Cut. Julianne Moore briefly fixes her hair. And then recounts the brutal attack that she and her children survived back home, shattering what had been a comfortable life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and leaving her with no choice but to smuggle herself and her children – via an endless journey in the back of a window- less truck – towards an uncertain future in an unknown country. In our first encounter with Love Story, Moore and Baldwin address us via a large projection, to speak of past anguish and hope for the future, of forced migration and loss, but also of the comfort of safety, friendship and love. They send shivers down our spines. We feel for them and with them, although the experiences that they articulate are obviously not their own and – for the most part – unlikely to be ours. Such is the power of cinema. Who would deny its ability to create illusion?

Yet these narratives of escape and of fresh beginning are hardly delivered to us seamless- ly. Breitz has recruited two familiar faces – two members of the global media family that we’re accustomed to welcoming into our living rooms – only to put into their mouths the stories of people who are generally treated as faceless and voiceless in our culture, only so as to introduce us to those who are typically destined to remain outside and beyond our zones of comfort: isolated in refugee camps and asylum courtrooms, relegated to the basement of our social (un)conscious. Over the course of seventy-three minutes, the montage featuring Baldwin and Moore suspends us between cinema-at-its-best – a drama- tized narration that moves us to tears and to laughter; and the inevitably awkward spectacle that ensues as we observe two highly-privileged celebrities attempting to earnestly channel lives that could not be more remote from their own. We are alternately moved and utterly perturbed. What business do major stars of the hegemonic American storytelling industry – with their iconic onscreen presence and professionally polished delivery – have slipping into these roles?

Alec Baldwin as a former child soldier from Angola? Julianne Moore as a refugee from war- torn Syria? The irreconcilable gap between these famous faces and the stories of dis- placement that they endeavour to embody on the screen before us, is reiterated formally by Breitz’s edit, which moves us at whiplash-pace between Baldwin and Moore, weaving a series of narrative fragments into a cinematic composition that in turn invites empathy and critique, credulity and disbelief. Captured in the nondescript vacuum of a green-screen set and denied the usual tricks of the trade (the actors wear their own clothes and perform

1/4 without backdrops, accents or props), these two white bodies are exemplary of the excep- tionalism that neoliberalism holds so dear. As they seek to animate the invisible lives of others, we cannot help but read the actors as privileged representatives of a broader economy of subjectivity, an economy in which an exclusive handful of individuals monopo- lises the precious currency of our attention, bathing in the visibility that we lavish on them as others are left to linger in the shadows of obscurity, their vague contours condemning them to anonymity. But there is still more of Love Story to be seen.

Moving into the second space of the installation, we come face-to-face with six men and women, whom Breitz interviewed in Berlin, New York and Cape Town in late 2015. The script for the Hollywood montage was in fact compiled from excerpts drawn from these interviews, which Breitz now presents to us in their full complexity and duration on six large monitors. These are the faces and the lives behind the fictional montage. The dramatic intensity of our initial encounter with the work gives way to sobriety, curiosity and insight, as the interviewees articulate their lived experience, sharing memories and anecdotes against a now familiar green screen. “People don't even care about us, you know, they would never put us on a movie screen and talk about us,” says Mamy Maloba Langa, who fled the horrific violence that was inflicted on her in Kinshasa: “The media is only interested in famous people; I don’t think all those nice people would come just to listen to my story, I don’t think so…”. José Maria João, who – as a child soldier – spent years following the murderous commands of generals (before finally fleeing Angola for the relative safety of Namibia), has a strong message for Baldwin: “Alec, you must be happy that Candice is giving you this opportunity to give people my story, to tell them about my life. I just want to ask you to tell this story that I went through in the right way. You must get it right.” João is issuing an assignment to the Hollywood actor. Some kind of collaboration is in the works.

Breitz has in fact built a bridge over which six refugees – standing in for millions of others – have been invited to step into public view. “Some of the most pressing social issues of our times have come into the limelight only after Hollywood actors and actresses performed certain roles,” explains Shabeena Saveri, a transgender activist who was forced to leave India under severe duress. Saveri is aware of the visibility that is afforded to blockbuster cinema and contemporary art. She sets out to harness this visibility, threading her own words – as a ventriloquist might – through the body of Julianne Moore. Moore rises to the task dutifully: “I was thinking, and I put myself in the shoes of that Hollywood actress, and I was thinking that if I were her, then this story would make a huge impact, because then it would reach a much larger audience….” Saveri’s sentiments are echoed elsewhere by Luis Nava, a respected Venezuelan professor and political dissident who fled Caracas, and now lives in exile in New York; Farah Mohamed, a young atheist whose lack of religious convic- tion put his life at risk back in Somalia; and Sarah Mardini, who left Syria in 2015 along with her younger sister Yusra (Yusra’s participation in the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, perhaps inevitably, attracted bids from Hollywood to turn her life story into a movie).

2/4 Each of these six stories is singular. Each demands to be heard. And each intersects with thousands of similar stories. The world is full of such stories. Who can listen to them all? Love Story asks this question pointedly, putting forward six first-person accounts that collectively amount to twenty-two hours of footage. Sooner or later, we are overwhelmed by the duration. We wander back to the condensed summary offered by Moore and Baldwin. Or we head home. Or we go to the movies. The great show trumps the truth. In an age in which cat videos and Trump’s tweets vie with stories of humanitarian disaster to capture our short spans of attention, an age in which late-night comedy has become a primary news source for so many, it is futile to insist on distinctions between fake and real news, between lived experience and fiction, between events and their representation. Instead, Breitz hacks into the operating system of the neoliberal attention economy, hoping to re-direct the flow of our attention, seeking to interrogate our capacity for solidarity.

Breitz’s montage exposes the mechanisms by means of which mainstream entertainment manipulates us emotionally, drilling into our affective being, choreographing our empathy and our relationship to community via the cult of celebrity and the disavowal of narrative complexity; a relentless combination of technology, aesthetics and performative prowess. The manipulative potential inherent in popular form is perhaps best understood, in the current political climate, by those on the right. Propaganda is hardest to dismantle and critique when it appeals to us at the level of emotion, rather than by reasoning with us. Love Story both reflects and reflects on the rampant populism of our time. The work caters to the same affective mechanisms, all the while purposefully stripping them bare; deconstructing them in order to take a clear stance against right-wing populism.

Does Love Story succeed in carving out a form of solidarity? Does the work spark passion- ate concern for the plight of others in a language that might be understood by many? The work is neither able (nor does it pretend) to resolve the ethical dilemma that is at the core of our fast-moving digital culture: Most of us simply don’t have the time, attention or patience that is required to hear out the very voices that can grant us an understanding of today’s economic and political cruelties. So, we surrender ourselves to the oblivion that allows such cruelties to be perpetuated. Over the past twenty-five years, Breitz’s oeuvre has scrutinised the manner in which neoliberal logic shapes and defines the experience of subjectivity, questioning the degree to which this logic might be evaded. In presenting a dense archive of marginal voices in counterpoint to an easily accessible and digestible fiction that appro- priates and dramatizes these voices, Love Story urges us to interrogate the conditions under which we are able (and willing) to exercise empathy.

Breitz suggests that the end of universal narratives does not necessarily imply the failure of far-reaching instruments of communication. There’s something to be gained when we trade a longing for truth and authenticity for the hope that new modes of storytelling can be found and disseminated, stories that might make people whom we wouldn’t willingly invite into our living rooms seem familiar enough so that we might want to change our minds. At the same

3/4 time, Breitz demonstrates how readily over-simplified narratives can be instrumentalised, first to bolster illusion and then to serve ignorance. Luminous with the artist’s keen intelli- gence, Love Story offers us emancipatory pleasure that is tinged with the bitter insight that we may not overcome the barrier between ourselves and those values which we hold to be morally just. Failing to put our convictions into practice may effectively signal our contribu- tion to the diminishment of others’ prospects in life.

Text: Alexander Koch Translation: Gerrit Jackson Editing: Kimberly Bradley

Source of Text: http://www.kow-berlin.info/artists/exhibitions/candice_breitz/candice_breitz

4/4 Oh! Oh! Love: Candice Breitz’s Monologues for Troubled Times

Zoé Whitley

Alfredo: Love is a heartbeat throughout the universe, mysterious, altering, the torment and delight of my heart. Violetta: Oh! Oh! Love!

– “Sempre Libera”, Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata

The crepe of the upper lip is what draws you in, before a single uttered word does. Not as a sign of imperfection, but as one of shared humanness, of vulnerability to time, to age, to circumstance – laughter, frowns, screams, puckered tastes and kisses – the travails that make a life. I stare at the larger-than-life face of Julianne Moore. She’s more human on screen than ever before: unvarnished, freckled and creased where Hollywood actors typically appear to have been burnished – around the eyes, on the cheeks and especially around the mouth. This makes her words utterly convincing. I believe her story implicitly. Even though the words are not her own. Moore is a medium. The personal narratives of three people are channelled through her: Shabeena Francis Saveri, from Mumbai, India; Mamy Maloba Langa who was born

71 Oh! Oh! Love

in Ntala, Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Sarah Ezzat Mardini from Damascus, Syria. They are seeking asylum in New York City, Cape Town and Berlin respectively. Moore alternates on screen with fellow actor Alec Baldwin who ventriloquises excerpts from the harrowing life experiences of Luis Ernesto Nava Molero (Venezuela), Farah Abdi Mohamed (Somalia) and José Maria João (Angola) – all with self-aware Baldwin swagger. Over a feature- length duration of seventy-three minutes, Moore and Baldwin deliver matter-of-fact, deeply emotive monologues, performing the lives and hardships of others in the frst person. Armed with the talismanic presence of personal efects borrowed from the original storytellers, the actors are a visual manifestation of cognitive dissonance, audio-visual bait-and-switch. Candice Breitz’s Love Story (2016), a seven-channel video installation, initially presents itself along traditional Hollywood cinematic proportions. The artist is invested in “making visible the mechanics of exceptionalism, whiteness perhaps being the most obvious visual marker of privilege.”1 In an interview in Johannesburg, Breitz pre-empts me with characteristic candour, asking, “Who am I, a white South African woman, to speak on behalf of anyone else?”2 It’s disarming. But it’s also honest. She’s posing the question not so as to avoid it, but in order to confront it. What price does white privilege exact? What price does silence exact in the face of fear, oppression and injustice experienced by others? Why are the lives of some valued more than those of others, eliciting more pathos in the face of sufering? To whose cries do we collectively respond? We can and should still ask these questions, but the artist has already asked them of herself, and her answers move beyond mere rhetoric. They are emphatically present in the work. While Breitz hasn’t more right to lay claim to certain narratives, she can marshal her own position and point of view to focus our attention on stories that we might otherwise choose not to hear.

72 Zoé Whitley

There are many well-worn Hollywood flm genres: Period costume drama. Teen slasher. Rom-com. Buddy action. Breitz zooms in on a sub-genre that is ubiquitous but infrequently acknowledged: African love story. You may never have heard it described as such, but you know it when you see it. It’s the audio- visual accompaniment to Binyavanga Wainaina’s script, “How to Write about Africa”.3 An unsuspecting white tourist/intrepid journalist/selfess NGO volunteer/rakish arms trader gets caught up in the socio-political drama of a named (or nameless, no matter) African country.4 Cue the outbreak of storm-, famine- or drought- induced desperation/violence/disease (delete as appropriate). And yet, against all odds, the white protagonist almost certainly fnds, as Rihanna sings, love in a hopeless place. South African actor Charlize Theron and Spanish actor Javier Bardem fnd romance in Liberia (The Last Face); Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly share on-screen chemistry in Sierra Leone (Blood Diamond); Kim Basinger and Vincent Perez start a new life in Kenya (I Dreamed

73 Oh! Oh! Love

of Africa). Each of these blockbuster titles – and many others besides – populates a dramatic African backdrop with recognisable Hollywood personalities, calling to mind a strategy that cultural critic bell hooks has astutely critiqued, one that invariably guarantees “that the [audience] will not become more enthralled by the images of Otherness than those of whiteness.”5 hooks refers to the logic that drives this genre as one of ‘defamiliarisation’, whereby the foreignness of the setting “distances us from whiteness so that we will return to it more intently.”6 In addition to race, one can also rif on the privileges that attend to recognisability. The interviewees who appear in Love Story each recorded a personal message that Breitz promised to relay to the relevant Hollywood actor (who would be channelling edited versions of their stories). Admitting that she doesn’t know exactly why Moore is renowned, Mamy Maloba Langa nevertheless imparts something of herself to the actor. She acknowledges that given Moore’s celebrity status and visibility it is both what and who

74 Zoé Whitley

Moore is that might allow her own story to have a wider reach: “My message to Julie … I really don’t know much about her, but what I know, because they’re famous people, because she’s a famous one (all over the news, TV), my message is that I know that when she will listen to this story and share it with the world, it won’t be the same as if it were just me – Mamy – coming to stand here to share my story … I don’t think all those nice people would come just to listen to my story, I don’t think so … But I think, because of what she is, because of who she is, I know that sharing my story will be something, you know, something nice that people will come and hear, because she’s a famous one …” That something – the social and emotional value, the attention that we “nice people” pay – is a rich area of study, because how and to whom we pay attention, show compassion and demonstrate empathy, has serious socio-economic implications. In her thinking around Love Story, Breitz builds on philosopher Georg Franck’s hypothesis that material wealth is rapidly being replaced by “mental capitalism”: “Dedicated attentiveness imparts dignity to the person receiving the attention. This alone makes receiving somebody’s benevolent attention a most highly valued good.”7 Though Franck tends to assume a universal subject (leaving unsettled the matter of how diferent individuals have fuctuating access to attention), he poses useful questions regarding how we invest our time in a neoliberal economy. What kind of individual does attention stick to? In Moore and Baldwin, Breitz ofers us two specimens of the kind of individuality that successfully attracts our attention. The exceptional individual occupies centre stage within our economy of images: those in possession of a particular beauty and magnetism, of athletic prowess, of political or fnancial power. And the more you are regarded as exceptional in our media culture, the more people are willing to invest in you materially and emotionally. “Nobody is inherently exceptional,” of course, as Breitz herself has pointed out. “We typically have access to exceptional status via

75 Oh! Oh! Love

being born into privileged social and economic circumstances, via entering the world on favourable terms. The exceptional individual is more often than not the benefciary of whiteness and, as such, has access to particular tools of self-narration.” The exceptional individual, for one thing, is able to perpetuate the myth of being self-made, rather than registering his or her belonging to an interconnected community. Franck concludes that, “Receiving alert attentiveness means becoming part of another world.”8 His analysis tallies with hooks’s observation that, “Movies not only provide a narrative for specifc discourses of race, sex and class, they provide a shared experience, a common starting point from which diverse audiences can dialogue about these charged issues.”9 Indeed, psychologist James Cutting has developed a mathematically sound analysis for studying a sample of 150 high-grossing Hollywood cinematic releases, demonstrating a clear pattern according to which flm editing and management of scene length can “resonate with the rhythm of human attention spans.”10 Beneath the Hollywood veneer that is our frst experience of Love Story, the layered work unfolds further on six more modestly scaled screens. Here we meet the genuine people behind the dramatisation that has been ofered by Moore and Baldwin. Having previously been dwarfed by the magnifed presence of A-list celebrities, we are now face-to-face with a series of intimate interviews, invited to engage at eye-level with approximately twenty hours of documentary footage. While the words delivered by Moore and Baldwin in the frst space of the installation are cinematically amplifed, the anecdotes of the interviewees can only be heard over headphones, by a maximum of three people at a time. This human reality – tucked away behind the great Hollywood machine – ofers us an entirely diferent version of the six narratives that are compressed within the Baldwin-Moore montage. The mechanics of packaged identifcation and empathy give way to a more nuanced human vulnerability, to testimonies that yield their richness only

76 Zoé Whitley to those who are willing to invest considerable time and energy in them. I’m reminded here of literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, who describes “the word in language” as being “half someone else’s”11. Bakhtin reminds us that the negotiation of power is always inherent to communication. Our words are not only our own, but also come to belong symbolically to those who receive them: “[The word] exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own.”12 Mindful of this, Breitz introduces us to a range of subjects for whom the presentation of immaculate, manicured selves – preened and camera-ready, armed with rehearsed and easily memorable soundbites – is not the end goal: “I wanted Love Story to preserve and dignify the stories that are so generously shared by the interviewees, no matter how hard these can be to hear. Mamy, for example – having described in intimate and gruelling detail the sexual and psychological violence to which she was subjected

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before feeing Kinshasa – explicitly insisted, during the course of her interview, on how important it was to her to share the minute details of her ordeal with an audience: ‘Candice, it’s really important that people know exactly what these men did to me. I want everybody to know that they ripped up every family photograph I had in my home, that they made me drink litres and litres of water to torture me and to weaken me. If I leave out these terrible details, people will not understand the horror that we experience as women’.”13 Is it possible to ghost-write oneself into subjectivity? Can the deployment of white privilege as a platform for those who might otherwise remain unheard overcome the reifcation that comes with whiteness? bell hooks has this to say: “As cultural critics proclaim this post-modern era the age of nomadism, the time when fxed identities and boundaries lose their meaning and everything is in fux, when border crossing is the order of the day, the real truth is that most people fnd it very difcult to journey away from familiar and fxed boundaries, particularly class locations. In this age of

78 Zoé Whitley mixing and hybridity, popular culture, particularly the world of movies, constitutes a new frontier providing a sense of movement, of pulling away from the familiar and journeying into and beyond the world of the other.”14 Love Story stages and exaggerates our general inattentiveness. In today’s too-long-didn’t-read, time-poor culture, screen time relentlessly captures then splinters our attention. Ofering an apt metaphor for the empathy gap that results, Breitz chooses to preserve the irreducibility of the original interviews, presenting us with stories that are impossible to absorb and process in a single sitting, if ever. How can one ever grasp the entirety of what Mamy or José have lived through? One cannot. How many people can personally relate to being a middle-class teenager like Sarah, once preoccupied with shopping for accessories and antiques back home in Damascus, now tentatively building a new life in Berlin, having been forced to fee her country? In truth, this is the experience of far too many young people worldwide, though it is an experience that is likely unknown to those reading (or writing) this text. “Even with the best of intentions,” Breitz refects, “those of us who live comfortable lives will never truly be able to comprehend what it might be like to watch dozens of people die before you, or to watch the expressions on the faces of your children as they observe you being relentlessly brutalised. The unwieldy duration of the footage that is archived in Love Story is intended to point to the magnitude of the lived experience that is encapsulated in the six narratives, to infer the impossibility of ever being able to truly grasp and digest these stories in the full range of their nuance and complexity. The sheer duration of the footage denies those experiencing Love Story the gratifcation and sense of fullness that mainstream storytelling has trained us to expect. These are not stories that can be easily owned by their audience.” And this is by design: we may invest some of our precious time in accessing the work, seduced frst by Moore and Baldwin, and then

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perhaps drawn into hearing the individual stories directly from the mouths of the afected. But ultimately ownership of the stories is resolutely retained by those who have lived them. The interviewees remain the only authentic possessors of their lived experience. Breitz’s amplifcation of the irreconcilable distance separating dramatised narration from lived experience, is both artistic and editorial: “Often when we encounter interviews with survivors of socio-political crises or trauma of some kind, editorial decisions regarding what information is relevant (or not) have already been made for us. The editor brings a structure to narratives that might otherwise resist easy comprehension, imposing a grammar that packages the unimaginable in comfortable form. I wanted to resist ofering that easy comfort to viewers as they engage the interviews that are at the heart of Love Story.” Breitz instead provides us with a hagiography of those who have had their lives stripped of material comfort through persecution, sufering, forced imprisonment and forbidden loving. The tender trepidation of Farah Abdi Mohamed in professing his atheism transforms non-belief into the ultimate form of unrequited love; the threat of rejection from the family circle. Will we be seduced by the Hollywood formula that favours celebrations of the triumph of the human spirit over strife, to the exclusion of documentary reality? Do we want to be seen as – and to perceive ourselves as – good people? Does our “niceness” extend no further than Moore and Baldwin? I can provide no better conclusion than the artist’s own voice in my ear: “As I got to know the six interviewees and to familiarise myself with their stories, I noticed that above and beyond the specifcity of their narratives (and the particular challenges of the personal journey that each has navigated), there is an intensity that they all share … An insistence on the possibility of transcending dire circumstances, a refusal to be bowed by oppression, a striving – at times against all odds – towards more liveable lives, the utter conviction that things could be better elsewhere. I can only describe

80 Zoé Whitley this force – which manifests over and over again in the stories shared by the interviewees – as something like love; a love for life, a love for family, a love for god, a love for expression, a love for being on this fucked-up planet despite everything. The desire to live and love without encumbrance is profoundly and emotionally insistent throughout the Love Story interviews. It is a refusal to succumb to darkness, an insistence on remaining human at all costs.” Candice Breitz’s Love Story trusts us to be a receptive audience rather than an indiferent one. Ultimately, we are all performing versions of ourselves, seeking approval and looking for something very much like love.

1 Zoé Whitley interview with Candice 8 Ibid. Breitz, Cape Town, South Africa: 9 bell hooks. Reel to Real: Race, Class and 20 February 2017. Sex at the Movies. London: Routledge. 2 Zoé Whitley interview with Candice 1996, 2. Breitz, Johannesburg, South Africa: 10 James E. Cutting, Jordan E. DeLong 12 September 2015. and Christine E. Nothelfer. “Attention 3 Binyavanga Wainaina. “How to Write and the Evolution of Hollywood Film”. about Africa”. Granta 92: The View from Psychological Science. 5 February 2010. Africa. 2006. 11 Mikhail Bakhtin. Dialogic Imagination 4 Needless to say, other continents (Michael Holquist, ed.). Austin: University comprising the global South can easily of Texas Press. 1981: 293. be interchanged … 12 Ibid, 294. 5 bell hooks. Black Looks: Race and 13 Zoé Whitley interview with Candice Representation. Toronto: Between the Breitz, Cape Town, South Africa. Lines. 1992: 28–29. 20 February 2017. 6 Ibid. 14 bell hooks. Reel to Real: Race, Class and 7 Georg Franck. The Economy of Attention. Sex at the Movies. London: Routledge. 1999. 1996, 2.

81

Love Story

[Texts in German]

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SVEN BECKSTETTE Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (dt. Kontingenz, Ironie und den wären. Romane von Choderlos de Laclos, Henry James oder Lubumbashi – sowie verschiedenen Themen wie Krieg, Homo- Solidarität) legte der US-amerikanische Philosoph 1989 dar, dass Nabokov zum Beispiel zeigen uns im Detail die Art von Grausam- sexualität, Religion und Atheismus hin und her springen. Zentrale WIR SIND DIE ANDEREN. diese „Wir-Intentionen“ zwischenmenschliche Verbundenheit keit, deren wir selbst fähig sind, und bringen uns auf die Weise Motive sind jedoch Erfahrungen von Bedrohung, Misshandlung ÜBER CANDICE BREITZ’ schaf fen, zugleich aber unmoralisches Handeln ermöglichen, da dazu, uns selbst neuzubeschreiben. Das ist der Grund, warum und schließlich Flucht, durch die die einzelnen Stränge miteinan- durch die Formel fremde Gruppen automatisch ausgeschlossen Roman, Kino und Fernsehen langsam aber sicher Predigt und Ab- der verwoben sind. Außerdem fällt auf, dass die Schauspieler ver- LOVE STORY würden, für die dieser Wir-Bezug eben nicht gelte. „Ich behaupte, handlung als Rolle der Hauptvehikel moralischer Veränderungen schiedene Accessoires tragen: So erscheint Alec Baldwin mal mit daß die Kraft des ‚wir‘ charakteristisch von einem Kontrast lebt: und Fortschritt abgelöst haben.“4 einer Sonnenbrille, Julianne Moore trägt abwechselnd mehrere ‚wir‘ bildet einen Kontrast zu ‚ihnen‘, die ebenfalls Menschen Die Frage, mit welchen Mitteln Solidarität und Verbundenheit er- Armreifen. Umläuft der Besucher die Leinwand, begegnen ihm im „Wir sind das Volk“ – dieser Slogan ist untrennbar mit den Mon- sind – aber Menschen von der falschen Sorte“,2 so Rorty. Diese zeugt wird, steht auch im Zentrum der raumfüllenden Video- hinteren Teil sechs weitere Projektionen von jeweils unbekannten tagsdemonstrationen des Jahres 1989 verbunden, die den Anfang Behauptung lässt sich unmittelbar auf die rassistische Verwendung installation Love Story von Candice Breitz. Ähnlich wie Rorty sieht Menschen – drei Frauen und drei Männer – unterschiedlicher vom Ende der DDR markierten. Bei den friedlichen Protestzügen des Slogans „Wir sind das Volk“ in Clausnitz übertragen. Breitz im Kino – vor allem in den Blockbustervarianten aus Hautfarbe. Auch sie befinden sich vor einem grünen Hintergrund in Leipzig richtete sich die Verwendung des Begriffs „Volk“ gegen Hauptanliegen von Rorty ist es aufzuzeigen, wie Solidarität nach- Hollywood –, seinen Erzählformen und deren Spiel mit unseren und sind leicht überlebensgroß ebenfalls frontal sitzend wieder- die Regierung und die herrschende Partei SED. Er war damit ein haltiger erreicht werden kann – ein Vorgang, der seiner Meinung Emotionen und Affekten ein Vehikel zur Schaffung von Empathie. gegeben. Ihre Beiträge lassen sich nur über Kopfhörer anhören, Aufruf zu mehr Demokratie. In letzter Zeit hat der Satz jedoch eine nach nur über empathisches Wiedererkennen des anderen als Im Unterschied zu Rorty indes legt die Künstlerin in der Arbeit die die auf Sitzmöglichkeiten bereitliegen. Bestimmte Passagen ihrer gegenteilige Bedeutung erhalten. 2014 tauchte er bei Demonstra- fühlendes und leidendes Wesen entsteht: „Die Betrachtungsweise, Differenz zwischen dem Erzählen von erlebten Erfahrungen und Rede erinnern an die Sätze, die Julianne Moore und Alec Baldwin tionen der rechtspopulistischen Pegida-Bewegung in Dresden auf. die ich hier vorstelle, besagt, daß es tatsächlich etwas wie morali- ihrer künstlerisch-dramaturgischen Verarbeitung zu einem Pro- gesprochen haben. Augenscheinlich bildeten also die Geschichten In diesem Zusammenhang sollte die Parole die Souveränität ihrer schen Fortschritt gibt und daß dieser Fortschritt wirklich in Richtung dukt der Kulturindustrie offen. Dadurch ist Love Story beides: ein der sechs Personen den Text für die Hollywood-Celebrities. Und Teilnehmer unterstreichen, um sich von der als illegitim angesehe- auf mehr Solidarität geht. Aber diese Solidarität soll man sich Kunstwerk, das an das Einfühlen in ein fremdes Gegenüber appel- auch die Accessoires finden sich bei ihnen wieder. nen Regierung abzugrenzen, die im Unterschied zur Volkskammer nicht als die Wiedererkennung eines Kern-Selbst, des wesentlich liert und zugleich didaktisch die Mechanismen hinter diesem Den zeithistorischen Kontext von Love Story bildet die als Flücht- der DDR allerdings in einem demokratischen Abstimmungsprozess Menschlichen in allen Menschen, vorstellen. Sie ist zu denken als Identifikationsvorgang aufzeigt. lingskrise bezeichnete Wanderungsbewegung von Menschen- frei gewählt worden war.1 die Fähigkeit, immer mehr zu sehen, daß traditionelle Unterschiede Die Installation besteht aus zwei Teilen. Im vorderen Raum steht gruppen aus den von Terrorismus und Bürgerkrieg heimgesuchten Am 18. Februar 2016 skandierte eine Menge von rund 100 Perso- (zwischen Stämmen, Religionen, Rassen, Gebrächen und der- eine kinogroße Projektionsfläche, vor der eine Bank zum Sitzen Regionen Nordafrikas sowie Vorder- und Südasiens nach Europa, nen „Wir sind das Volk“, zusammen mit dem fremdenfeindlichen gleichen Unterschiede) vernachlässigbar sind im Vergleich zu Ähn- einlädt. Auf der Leinwand sind die Hollywoodschauspieler Alec die im Sommer 2015 einen enormen Anstieg verzeichnete. An- Ausruf „Ausländer raus“, um die Unterbringung von Flüchtlingen lichkeiten im Hinblick auf Schmerz und Demütigung – es ist die Baldwin und Julianne Moore immer abwechselnd zu sehen, die, fangs in Deutschland eine Welle von bürgerschaftlichem Engage- im sächsischen Dorf Clausnitz zu verhindern. In diesem Kontext Fähigkeit, auch Menschen, die himmelweit verschieden sind, doch zumeist als übergroßes Brustbild wiedergegeben, den Betrachter ment und vielfach aufopfernder Hilfe hervorrufend, wandelte sich erhielt die Losung eine völkisch-rassistische Betonung, in der sich zu ‚uns‘ zu zählen.“3 direkt anschauen. Sie befinden sich vor einem monochrom grünen die Situation vor allem nach Übergriffen von Migranten auf Frauen der menschenverachtende Hass auf die Flüchtlingsfamilien aus Wichtige Vermittlungsmedien auf dem Weg zu mehr Solidarität Hintergrund, wie er bei Kinoproduktionen als Greenscreen ver- in der Silvesternacht in Köln zu einer von Vorurteilen geprägten Afghanistan, Syrien, Iran und dem Libanon ausdrückte. Im eben- sind für Rorty Erzählungen, wobei er Erzählung nicht als rein lite- wendet wird, um Schauspielerinnen und Schauspieler in andere Debatte über Integration, Zuwanderung, Sexismus, Islamisierung falls in Sachsen liegenden Bautzen wurde drei Tage später ein leer rarische Gattung ansieht, sondern auch dokumentarische Formen Filmaufnahmen oder Computersimulationen einfügen zu können. sowie politische und mediale Repräsentation. Diese Diskussion stehendes Hotel angezündet, das ab März Asylsuchende beher- und vor allem das Kino hierzu zählt: „Der Prozeß, in dessen Verlauf Es gibt kein ausstatterisches Beiwerk wie Requisiten, Kostüme, wird zunehmend von Akteuren geprägt, die an einer gesellschaft- bergen sollte. Insgesamt hat sich die Anzahl der Angriffe auf wir allmählich andere Menschen als ‚einen von uns‘ sehen statt Maskierungen oder übermäßige Schminke. Manchmal erschei- lichen Spaltung interessiert sind: Bei Wahlen in drei Bundesländern Flüchtlingsunterkünfte im letzten Jahr (2015) verfünffacht. Dabei als ‚jene‘, hängt ab von der Genauigkeit, mit der beschrieben wird, nen die beiden auch ganzfigurig im Bild, auf einem Regiestuhl im März 2016 gelang der rechtspopulistischen Partei Alternative handelt es sich nicht um ein rein ostdeutsches Problem, sondern wie fremde Menschen sind, und neubeschrieben, wie wir sind. sitzend, umgeben von Reflektorscheiben auf Stativen. Sie führen für Deutschland (AfD) aus dem Stand der Einzug in die Landtage auch im Saarland, in Nordrhein-Westfalen und anderen west- Das ist eine Aufgabe nicht für die Theorie, sondern für Sparten keinen fortlaufenden Dialog, sondern sprechen nacheinander. mit Ergebnissen im unteren zweistelligen Bereich. deutschen Bundesländern ist diese Entwicklung zu mehr Gewalt wie Ethnographie, Zeitungsberichte, Comic-Hefte, Dokumentar- Bei längerem Zusehen fällt außerdem auf, dass die Texte zwar aus Für Love Story versachlicht Breitz diese teilweise hitzig geführte deutlich zu erkennen. stücke und vor allem Romane. Bücher wie die von Dickens, Olive der Ich-Perspektive erzählen, aber keine einheitliche Handlung Auseinandersetzung, indem sie sich nicht allein auf die derzeitige Die Parole „Wir sind das Volk“ lässt sich nach Richard Rorty Schreiner oder Richard Wright liefern uns Details über Leid, das er geben, sondern zwischen unterschiedlichen Orten – Berlin, Flüchtlingsproblematik bezieht, sondern die Themen „Flucht“, (1931–2007) als „Wir-Intention“ bezeichnen. In seinem Buch Menschen ertragen, auf die wir vorher nicht aufmerksam gewor- Mumbai, Kapstadt, New York, Damaskus, Kinshasa, Caracas und „Vertreibung“ und „Migration“ aus globaler Perspektive betrach- 56 57

tet: Für die Arbeit hat die Künstlerin zunächst Interviews mit immer dann tragen, wenn sie die Geschichte ihres jeweiligen etwa eine Liebesgeschichte, eine „love story“ einbauen – und mit 1: Zur Verwendung der Parole „Wir sind das Volk“ in popu- listischer Rhetorik schreibt Jan-Werner Müller: „Populisten sechs Personen, die ihre Heimat verlassen haben, in drei Ländern Besitzers darstellen. berühmten Schauspielern werben. Julianne Moore und Alec behaupten: ‚Wir sind das Volk!‘ Sie meinen jedoch – und (Südafrika, Deutschland, USA) geführt. Die Motive für ihren Weg- Der Wendepunkt in der Wahrnehmung der fiktiven und doku- Baldwin repräsentieren diese Prinzipien idealtypisch, standen beide dies ist stets eine moralische, keine empirische Aussage (und dabei gleichzeitig eine politische Kampfansage): ‚Wir zug fallen unterschiedlich aus. So ging Farah Abdi Mohamed von mentarischen Filme ergibt sich für den Betrachter beim Übergang doch 2014 in dem Film Still Alice gemeinsam als Paar vor der – und nur wir – repräsentieren das Volk.‘ Damit werden alle, Somalia nach Berlin, weil er als Atheist im von Islam dominierten vom vorderen in den hinteren Teil der Installation. Im Vergleich der Kamera, einer Tragödie über eine Frau, die an Alzheimer erkrankte die anders denken, ob nun Gegendemonstranten auf der Somalia damit rechnen musste, umgebracht zu werden. Ebenfalls Interviewvorlagen mit ihrer schauspielerischen Interpretation wird und für die Moore mit einem Oscar ausgezeichnet wurde. Zwar Straße oder Abgeordnete im Bundestag, als illegitim abge- stempelt, ganz unabhängig davon, mit wie viel Prozent der nach Berlin flüchtete Sarah Ezzat Mardini, eine junge Sport- deutlich, wie sich eine Geschichte und unsere Wahrnehmung auf erreicht ein solcher Film über Tabuthemen oder gesellschaftspoli- Stimmen ein offizieller Volksvertreter ins Hohe Haus ge- schwimmerin, die sich in Deutschland eine bessere Zukunft erhofft sie mit der Person verändert, die sie erzählt. Bei Moore und tische Missstände ein weltweites Publikum. Die besondere, aber wählt wurde“; Jan-Werner Müller, Was ist Populismus? Ein Essay, Frankfurt am Main 2016, S. 18f. als in ihrer vom Krieg gezeichneten syrischen Heimat. Professor Baldwin begegnen wir als attraktiv geltende Menschen, die in vielleicht wenig heroische oder spannende Geschichte des kon- 2: Richard Rorty, Kontingenz, Ironie und Solidarität, Frankfurt Luis Ernesto Nava Molero lehrte an der Universidad Simón Bolívar gut verständlichem amerikanischen Englisch leicht zu folgende kreten Individuums bleibt in diesem Anpassungsprozess an die am Main 1989, S. 307. in Caracas. Als Homosexueller, vor allem aber als Gegner von Erlebnisse schildern. Diese Erzählungen sind manchmal von bru- Konventionen Hollywoods jedoch auf der Strecke. 3: Ebd., S. 310. 4: Ebd., S. 16. Präsident Hugo Chávez war er Anfeindungen und Drohungen taler Grausamkeit und rühren durch die darstellerische Leistung Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt Love Story den Betrachter vor ausgesetzt, weshalb er nach New York emigrierte. Dorthin floh an unseren Gefühlen. Zugleich ist uns auf rationaler Ebene klar, moralische Fragen, die nur jeder Einzelne für sich beantworten auch Dr. Shabeena Francis Saveri aus Mumbai, die schon früh ihre dass Baldwin und Moore diese Leiden nie selbst erlitten haben. kann: Wem schenke ich meine Aufmerksamkeit und Zeit und mit Transgender-Identität erkannte. Sie war Stigmatisierung und dro- Die Interviews mit den Geflüchteten hingegen sind mitunter lang- wem identifiziere ich mich? Interessiere ich mich für die individu- hender Strafverfolgung ausge liefert, da Homosexualität in Indien atmig, wiederholend und manchmal schwer zu verstehen. Der ellen Leiden der anderen, und macht es einen Unterschied, ihr illegal ist. Als Kindersoldat im angolanischen Bürgerkrieg wurde Zugang zu ihnen erfordert größere Anstrengungen. Dafür sind Schicksal unpersönlich vermittelt zu bekommen? Welche Gefühle José Maria João missbraucht, wovon er sich nur durch Flucht über ihre Berichte schockierender, weil wir durch ihr Suchen nach den des Mitleids sind echt: die, die mir bekannte Menschen vorspielen, Namibia nach Kapstadt retten konnte. Dorthin ließ sich auch richtigen Worten wissen, welche Qualen der Mensch vor uns tat- oder die Offenbarungen von unbedeutenden Einzelnen? Und Mamy Maloba Langa mit drei Kindern von Schmugglern bringen. sächlich erdulden musste. was, um zu Rorty zurückzukommen, bedeutet in diesem Zusam- Weil ihr Mann als Leibwächter von Jean-Pierre Bemba arbeitete, Anhand von Love Story lässt sich damit einerseits beobachten, menhang emphatisches Empfinden und solidarisches Denken? war sie nach der Wahl seines Widersachers Joseph Kabila zum welcher Wandel in der Wahrnehmung vonstatten geht, wenn Wir, das sind die anderen. Präsidenten der Demokratischen Republik Kongo in Kinshasa Hollywoodschauspieler sich fremde Erlebnisse aneignen und mit nicht mehr sicher, vor allem als ihr Haus gestürmt und sie von den dem Repertoire ihrer erlernten Darstellungstechniken interpre- Stuttgart, im Frühjahr 2016 Schlägern Kabilas vergewaltigt wurde. tieren. Deshalb hat Breitz Moore und Baldwin in einem möglichst Während die aufgezeichneten mehrstündigen Interviews, in denen neutralen Umfeld aufgenommen, im dem der Fokus völlig auf die sechs Geflüchteten ihre individuellen Geschichten darlegen, in ihrer Mimik und Gestik sowie der Betonung ihrer Stimme liegt. voller Länge im hinteren Teil der Installation zu sehen sind, hat Durch die Montage der Sequenzen, bei der sich Nahperspektive Breitz aus den Erzählungen Schlüsselstellen ausgewählt, diese re- und Halbtotale miteinander abwechseln, wird beständig auf das digierend geglättet und daraus Texte erstellt, die von Baldwin und Setting verwiesen. Narrationsstränge werden damit aufgebaut. Moore auf der vorderen Projektion nachgesprochen werden. Um Im gleichen Zug werden sie wieder kontextualisiert und als bloß die narrativen Stränge beider Teile auf subtile Weise miteinander gespielt offengelegt. Auf der anderen Seite zeigt sich, wie das zu verzahnen, hat Breitz die Geflüchteten gebeten, einen per- Blockbusterkino mit einer echten Geschichte, einer „true story“ sönlichen Gegenstand auszuwählen, den sie mit ihrem Schicksal umgeht. Denn um den ökonomischen Zwängen der Kinoindustrie verbinden und den sie bei ihrem Gespräch anziehen sollten. Diese zu gehorchen, muss ein Film möglichst viele Zuschauer ansprechen, zumeist unauffälligen Objekte – ein Silberring, ein Plastikarm- die noch dazu unterhalten werden wollen. Selbst Filme, die auf band, verschiedene Armreifen sowie eine Anstecknadel – wurden einer wahren Begebenheit basieren, müssen deshalb die Realität für den Dreh an die professionellen Schauspieler verliehen, die sie dramatisieren, indem sie bekannte Erzählmuster wiederholen – CANDICE BREITZ LOVE STORY

Alexander Koch

„Du bist berühmt. Dir werden die Leute zuhören“, sagt Alec Baldwin über sich selbst und erzählt von seiner Verhaftung in Kairo, von dem völlig überfüllten Boot nach Italien und der Ankunft im unbekannten Berlin an einem regnerischen Tag im September 2015. Schnitt. Julianne Moore ordnet sich das Haar, ehe sie berichtet, mit welcher Rohheit ihre Familie angegriffen wurde. Wie ihr altes Leben zusammenbrach und ihr keine andere Wahl blieb, als mit den Kindern überhastet in einem fensterlosen Lastwagen tagelang ins Ungewisse zu fahren. Auf großer Leinwand sprechen Moore und Baldwin in Candice Breitz’ Love Story von vergangener Angst und bleibender Hoffnung, von Vertreibung und Verlust, aber auch von Geborgenheit, Freundschaft und Liebe. Gänsehaut kommt auf. Wir fühlen mit ihnen, obgleich sie Erlebnisse schildern, die offenkundig nicht die ihren sind und in der Regel auch nicht die unseren. So ist das eben im Film. Wer wollte klagen, dass er Illusionen schafft?

Doch die Darstellung von Flucht und Neuanfang geht nicht bruchlos über die Leinwand. Candice Breitz hat zwei vertrauten Gesichtern, die wir als Familienmitglieder unseres globalisierten Medienhaushalts gerne auch ins Wohnzimmer lassen, Geschichten derer in den Mund gelegt, die oft als Gesichts- und Stimmlos betrachten werden und draußen vor der Tür bleiben, in den Flüchtlingslagern und Asylgerichtssälen, den Kellergeschossen des sozialen (Un-)Bewusstseins. 73 Minuten lang ist dieses Filmereignis mal großes Kino, das zu Tränen rührt und amüsiert, mal sehen wir den beiden Vertretern einer hochprivilegierten Schaustellerklasse dabei zu, wie sie redlich bemüht ihr Handwerk verrichten, um aufzufüh- ren, was sie nicht verkörpern können. Ein anderes mal erscheint der ganze Vorgang ärgerlich. Denn was haben Großstars der hegemonialen US-Erzählindustrie mit ihrem ikonischen Auftreten und der durchtrainierten Rhetorik überhaupt in diesen Rollen zu suchen?

Alec Baldwin als ehemaliger Kindersoldat aus Angola? Julianne Moore eine dem Krieg entkommene Syrerin? Das Kinoerlebnis reißt nicht nur an der Kluft zwischen diesen Welten, auch formal folgt Schnitt auf Schnitt: Candice Breitz’ Montagetechnik wirft uns in schnellem Rhythmus von Baldwin zu Moore, von einem Schicksal ins nächste, weckt Gutglauben und Misstrauen, Empathie und Kritik. Aufgenommen vor der ortlosen Kulisse eines Greenscreen-Sets werden die beiden Mimen als weiße Hochglanzkörper inszeniert, während sie ohne jede Rahmenhandlung die unsichtbaren Leben Dritter animieren. Dabei exponieren sie sich selbst als Vorzeigemodelle einer Subjektwirtschaft, die das universelle Gold unserer Aufmerksamkeit einsammelt und einige wenige so hell beleuchtet, dass viele andere im Schatten bleiben, wo ihre unklaren Konturen als anonyme Masse herumgescho- ben werden. Doch wir kennen erst die halbe Love Story.

1/3 Im zweiten Teil der Ausstellung treffen wir auf die sechs geflüchteten Frauen und Männer, die Breitz 2015 in Berlin, New York und Kapstadt interviewte und aus deren Berichten sie ihr Skript für Moore und Baldwin zusammensetzte. Auf sechs Großmonitoren begegnen wir den Gesichtern hinter den Gesichtern aus Hollywood, den Informanten des Werkes und den Leben, um die es darin geht. Was Kino und Geste war, wird jetzt Ernst, Neugier und Einsicht. Gefilmt vor dem gleichen grünen Screen sprechen sie nun selbst: „Die Leute interessieren sich doch gar nicht für uns, verstehst Du?“, sagt Mamy Maloba Langa, die den gewaltsamen Übergriffen in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo entkam. „Die Medien wollen berühmte Gesichter. Ich glaube nicht, dass all diese netten Menschen kommen würden, nur um meine Geschichte zu hören. Ich glaube nicht.“ José Maria João führt aus, wie er als Kindersoldat in Angola zu morden hatte, ehe er endlich davonlief. Er hat auch eine Nachricht für Alec Baldwin: „Er soll glücklich sein, wenn Candice ihm die Gelegenheit gibt, meine Geschichte zu erzählen. Er soll sie gut erzählen. Er muss es richtig machen!“ Es ist ein Auftrag an den Schauspieler und zunehmend wird klar: Hier wird kooperiert.

Tatsächlich hat Candice Breitz eine Brücke gebaut, über die sechs Geflüchtete stellvertre- tend für Millionen in die Öffentlichkeit gehen. „Einige der dringlichen sozialen Themen in unserer Gesellschaft kamen erst ins Rampenlicht, nachdem Hollywooddarstellerinnen und - darsteller diese Rollen aufführten“, erklärt Shabeena Saveri, die als Transgender-Aktivistin Indien verlassen musste. Jetzt nutzt sie selbst den Kunst- und Kinostarbetrieb wie eine Bauchrednerin, die ihre Handpuppe sprechen lässt. Und Moore gibt Saveris Worte getreu wieder: „Ich dachte – und ich stelle mir jetzt vor, in der Haut dieser Hollywoodschauspielerin zu stecken – und habe gedacht, dass wenn ich sie wäre, dann würde diese Geschichte einen großen Einfluss haben, denn dann würde sie ein viel größeres Publikum erreichen.“ Ebenso sehen es Luis Nava, einst angesehener Professor, der als politischer Dissident aus Venezuela floh, Farah Mohamed, der seine atheistische Einstellung in Somalia nicht länger verbergen konnte, und Sarah Mardini; sie entkam 2015 dem Syrienkrieg gemeinsam mit ihrer Schwester Yusra, die 2016 bei den Olympischen Spielen in Rio antrat – und dann selbst Angebote aus Hollywood erhielt, ihre Vergangenheit in Kinostoff zu verwandeln.

Jede der sechs Geschichten ist singulär und jede will sich mitteilen. Und jede trifft auf Tausende vergleichbarer Geschichten, die Welt ist voll davon. Wer kann sie alle hören? Schon hier in der Ausstellung ist das sechsfache Zeugnis nicht zu bewältigen, das sich über 22 Stunden lang ungekürzt darbietet. So gehen wir irgendwann zurück zu Moore und Baldwin und ihrer schnittigen Kurzfassung. Oder nach Hause. Oder ins Kino. Die große Show wiegt mehr als die ganze Wahrheit. Wo Katzenvideos mit Trump-Tweets und Kata- strophenmeldungen um die kurze Spanne unseres Gewahrseins konkurrieren und Comedy- Shows für viele Menschen die Tagesschau sind, wirken die Unterscheidungen zwischen Fake News und Real News, zwischen Gewissheit und Story, zwischen Ereignis und Reprä- sentation hilflos. Also hat sich Candice Breitz in das Betriebssystem der neoliberalen Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie gehackt, um dort Umbuchungen im Verteilungssystem unserer Solidaritätsbereitschaft vorzunehmen.

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Breitz lässt uns am eigenen Leibe erfahren, wie gut sich affektive Reflexe medial anspre- chen lassen. Sie zeigt, wie effektiv die Kombination von Technologie, Ästhetik und Rhetorik, Starkult und narrativen Kurzbotschaften einen manipulativen Apparat hervorbringt, der sich Einlass in unsere Einfühlungsbereitschaft und unser Wir-Empfinden verschafft. Man könnte es eine Kulturtechnik nennen, die heute augenscheinlich vor allem rechte Mentalitäten als Propagandawerkzeug so zu nutzen verstehen, dass sie sich nicht ohne weiteres kritisieren oder demontieren lassen, eben weil sie auf Gefühle, nicht auf Rationalität setzen. Love Story ist eine deutliche Reaktion auf den Populismus unserer Tage. Das Werk bedient die gleichen affektiven Mechanismen, offenbart sie jedoch durch gezielte Dekonstruktion und nutzt sie zugleich selbst, um sich dem Rechtspopulismus inhaltlich frontal entgegenzustel- len.

Gelingt Love Story also eine solidarische Form, die Sinn und Leidenschaft für die Belange anderer in einer Sprache entfachen kann, die für Viele funktioniert? Die Arbeit kann und will das zeitgenössische moralische Dilemma nicht auflösen, dass den meisten von uns nicht die Zeit, nicht die Aufmerksamkeit, nicht die Geduld gegeben ist, die Stimmen ausreden zu lassen, die allein den eigentlichen Klang der ökonomischen und politischen Grausamkeiten der Gegenwart wiedergeben können. So nehmen wir den Wahrnehmungsverlust hin, der diesen Grausamkeiten weiter Raum gibt. Wenn Breitz’ Werk der letzten 25 Jahre die Verschränkungen von Populärkultur und neoliberaler Subjektökonomie untersuchte und dabei dem Gerechtigkeitsempfinden Schneisen schlug, dann bietet Love Story – als Archiv der marginalisierten O-Töne im Kontrapunkt mit deren unterhaltsam verkürzter Mediatisie- rung – Gelegenheit, die Wertmaßstäbe unseres eigenen Empathievermögens zu problema- tisieren.

Candice Breitz zeigt, dass das Ende der großen, universalen Erzählungen nicht das Ende weitreichender Instrumente der Verständigung bedeutet, und dass wir etwas zu gewinnen haben, wenn wir unsere Sehnsucht nach Wahrheit und Authentizität gegen die Hoffnung eintauschen, Erzählungen zu finden und zu verbreiten, die uns Menschen, die wir nicht so ohne weiteres in unser Wohnzimmer bitten, so vertraut erscheinen lassen, dass wir unsere Meinung vielleicht ändern. Sie zeigt aber zugleich, wie schnell solche Erzählungen Regime errichten, die auf den Lücken unserer Wahrnehmung erst Illusionen und dann Ignoranz etablieren. Love Story ist ein emanzipativer, klug leuchtender Genuss, dem der bittere Zweitgeschmack der Einsicht beiwohnt, dass wir vielleicht von dem getrennt bleiben, was uns moralisch richtig scheint, sich praktisch als schwierig erweist und in Konsequenz unseren Beitrag zur Verknappung der Lebensperspektiven Dritter bedeutet.

Source of Text: http://www.kow-berlin.info/artists/exhibitions/candice_breitz/candice_breitz

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Love Story

[Online Viewing]

LOVE STORY

Demo Footage / Online Viewing Password: Sunday

The extracts provided below are only a partial representation of Love Story. Links can be made available to view all seven channels in their full duration.

FRONT SPACE BACK SPACE (Hollywood Montage) (Corresponding Interview Footage)

I arrived in Berlin on my birthday….

Love Story (Extract 01) Sarah Ezzat Mardini (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/lovestoryextract01 vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract01_sarah_syria

Farah Abdi Mohamed (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract01_farah_somalia

Hugo Chávez used to talk about ‘the Hollywood Dictatorship’…

Love Story (Extract 02) Mamy Maloba Langa (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/lovestoryextract02 vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract02_mamy_drcongo

Luis Ernesto Nava Molero (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract02_luis_venezuela

Shabeena Francis Saveri (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract02_shabeena_india

José Maria João (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract02_jose_angola

Sarah Ezzat Mardini (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract02_sarah_syria

Farah Abdi Mohamed (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract02_farah_somalia

Certain situations in life push you towards extreme decisions…

Love Story (Extract 03) Luis Ernesto Nava Molero (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/lovestoryextract03 vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract03_luis_venezuela

Shabeena Francis Saveri (Interview Source) vimeo.com/candicebreitz/extract03_shabeena_india

Interview: Sarah Ezzat Mardini (Syria) Full Interview: https://vimeo.com/candicebreitz/sarah Password: sunday

Extract A / https://vimeo.com/180305254 Extract B / https://vimeo.com/170373602 Extract C / https://vimeo.com/170374313

Sarah (aged 20) and her 17-year-old sister Yusra left Damascus in August 2015. In her interview, Sarah describes the 25-day odyssey that the sisters survived as they made their way from Syria—via Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria— to Germany (often in the hands of smugglers). She vividly describes how she and Yusra spent a night in the dark waters of the Aegean Sea, literally pushing a rubber boat full of grown men from Izmir (Turkey) to Lesbos (Greece), after the motor of their over-loaded dinghy failed just offshore. Less than a year after arriving in Germany, Yusra competed at the Rio Olympics (swimming for the Refugee Olympic Team).

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Interview: Luis Ernesto Nava Molero (Venezuela) Full Interview: https://vimeo.com/candicebreitz/luis Password: sunday

Extract A / https://vimeo.com/170374344 Extract B / https://vimeo.com/180303703 Extract C / https://vimeo.com/180303704 Extract D / https://vimeo.com/170374300

A well-respected professor of political science at a university in Caracas, Luis became a target of Hugo Chávez’s regime not only due to his outspoken criticism of the regime’s politics, but also because his closeted life as a gay man infuriated the conservative Catholic community in which he was embedded (Chávez himself was notoriously homophobic). After being beaten within an inch of his life by government henchman in a campus parking lot one night, Luis fled Venezuela to seek asylum in New York.

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Interview: Mamy Maloba Langa (Democratic Republic of Congo) Full Interview: https://vimeo.com/candicebreitz/mamy Password: sunday

Extract A / https://vimeo.com/180305257 Extract B / https://vimeo.com/180303705 Extract C / https://vimeo.com/170374294

Mamy’s husband fled Congo DRC soon after the presidential candidate for whom he had worked (as a bodyguard) lost a key election in 2006. Left to fend for herself and three young children in Kinshasa, Mamy was mercilessly raped by members of a militia loyal to the candidate who won the election (political opponents of her husband). She smuggled herself and the kids to South Africa in the back of a truck, nearly dying of suffocation on the way. Soon after managing to reunite with her husband in South Africa, he was killed while working as a bouncer at a Cape Town club. She is yet to be granted asylum in South Africa after nine years.

Interview: Farah Abdi Mohamed (Somalia) Full Interview: https://vimeo.com/candicebreitz/farah Password: sunday

Extract A / https://vimeo.com/170373609 Extract B / https://vimeo.com/180303702 Extract C / https://vimeo.com/170374323

Born into an extremely religious community in Somalia, Farah did everything possible to ‘find the signs’ of Allah, but realized as a young child that he did not believe. Aware of the danger that he potentially faced as a result (there was a high likelihood that members of his extended family would feel obliged to end his life to prevent him from poisoning the minds of others with his doubt, within a community in which the death penalty is viewed as appropriate punishment for those who renounce their faith), Farah fled Somalia to study in Egypt, eventually boarding a rickety fishing boat operated by smugglers to travel from Cairo to Berlin, in search of a new home where he could enjoy freedom of belief.

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Interview: Shabeena Francis Saveri (India) Full Interview: https://vimeo.com/candicebreitz/shabeena Password: sunday

Extract A / https://vimeo.com/180305259 Extract B / https://vimeo.com/180305258 Extract C / https://vimeo.com/170380732 Extract D / https://vimeo.com/170374302

Born a boy to her Catholic mother and Hindu father in Mumbai, Shabeena felt trapped in her body and longed for a future as a woman. Under laws inherited from the British colonial era, sexual intercourse that is not reproductive and heterosexual remains illegal and severely punishable in India. At a young age, Shabeena joined a hijra community, only to discover that within that community she would be condemned to a life of begging and prostitution. Having discovering the term ‘transgender’ online in her teens, Shabeena managed—against all odds—to escape the hierarchically-structured hijra community, and to acquire a PhD in gender studies in Chennai, soon after which she fled to the USA, seeking asylum and the possibility of living her life as a transgender women without daily fear.

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Interview: José Maria João (Angola) Full Interview: https://vimeo.com/candicebreitz/jose Password: sunday

Extract A / https://vimeo.com/180303701 Extract B / https://vimeo.com/180305256 Extract C / https://vimeo.com/170374310

Abducted from the market of a small village in northern Angola in his early teens, José was taken to a bush camp to join a rebel militia (UNITA). Given an AK47 on the day after his arrival at the camp, José spent many years observing and perpetrating killings in enemy villages as the militia sought to expand its territory. Child soldiers who did not follow orders were tortured and/or shot. Around 1994, José started to hear his mother’s voice in dreams, pleading with him to stop killing. He found the courage to flee the camp around 1997, late at night, running through the bush for five days to reach Namibia. He was granted asylum first in Namibia and later in South Africa, where he lives today.

Love Story: Personal objects belonging to Shabeena Francis Saveri, Mamy Maloba Langa, Sarah Ezzat Mardini, Farah Abdi Mohamed, José Maria João and Luis Ernesto Nava Molero.