
Candice Breitz
kaufmann repetto | New York

Cleft-lipped, navel-less miniature mutantsdressed inexplicably in Devo-esque jumpsuitsare the chilling bogeymen in David Cronenberg’s 1979 horror film, The Brood. Scarier, though, is what unleashes them: the unorthodox therapeutic practice of Dr. Raglan, who seeks to treat the antiheroine Nola Carveth by excavating her repressed rage through spirited role play. As a result of Raglan’s questionable methods, his patients’ emotions become somatized symptoms: whether welts, glistening pustules, or, in Nola’s case, the titular squad of undersize assassins, who bud parthenogenetically from her abdomen and later try to bump off her daughter.
The Brood’s therapy scenes, isolated from the rest of the film, make up one of the two channels in artist Candice Breitz’s 2013 video work, Treatment. (The show was presented by Kaufmann Repetto in Milan at the Andrew Kreps Gallery space.)

Artforum print subscribers have full access to this article. If you are a subscriber, sign in below.
Not registered for artforum.com?
SUBSCRIBE NOW for only $50 a year—65% off the newsstand price—and receive the print magazine plus full online access to this issue and our archive.*
Order the PRINT EDITION of the May 2015 issue for $17 or the ONLINE EDITION for $5.99.
* This rate applies to U.S. domestic subscriptions.