Image from the film- The Audition- by Candice Breitz
From the press release for her show, The Woods, at Perry Rubenstein Gallery –
The Woods encompasses installations filmed in three of the world’s leading centers of film production – Hollywood (Los Angeles, USA), Bollywood (Mumbai, India) and Nollywood (Lagos, Nigeria). Two of the three installations that make up the trilogy – The Audition (filmed in Los Angeles) and The Rehearsal (filmed in Mumbai) – present aspiring and working child actors, situating them in scenarios in which they ventriloquize voices and personae that would typically belong to adults. The third installation, The Interview (filmed in Lagos), features two adult actors who are best known on the African continent for their portrayal of child characters, and mimics the format of a conventional celebrity interview. As suggested by their titles, The Audition, The Rehearsal and The Interview zoom in on generally unseen show business rituals, which collectively become the loci of meaning through which Breitz reflects on and decodes the myth-making machinery of mainstream cinema.
The Audition, pictured above, has two video sets running at the same time- the child actor’s screen tests on one wall and on another wall, a set of screens with different child actors alternating between performing lines of advice from industry professionals, introducing themselves, and singing songs. The juxtaposition between their reading the words of adults and their free-form (no direction was given) screen tests, really accentuates this world where children grow up early for the sake of fame.
Each of these installations run close to or longer than an hour (the longest is 76 minutes). That said, they make an impression even without being seen in their entirety.