Marilyn Manson Monument, Berlin, June 2007

Through the Monuments series of photographs, Candice Breitz is concerned more precisely with relations that link the fans to their idols. The large-format photographic portraits present “families” of fans, contacted through small ads and brought together by Breitz in Berlin to celebrate their respective idols: Marilyn Manson, Britney Spears, Abba, Iron Maidon and Grateful Dead. The figure of the fan is a central element in Breitz’s production. As the artist points out, pop music, because it is a collective phenomenon, has progressively impregnated individual identity construction: “Pop music has become the soundtrack of our personal history.” The two projects presented here also throw light on the way the fans’ personalities oscillate between the staging of their own identity and its disappearance in a collective dynamic. This ambiguity between identity and otherness was echoed in the title of her exhibition in Mudam (26/04/2008 - 22/09/2008), Be My Somebody which was inspired by a Marilyn Manson song.