Artists
Keren Cytter Born in 1977 in Tel Aviv, Israel | Lives and works in Berlin
Portrait
Keren Cytter
The Israeli artist,Keren Cytter, works with a variety of forms of expression that primarily include, along with the writing of dialog and novellas, films and drawings and for a number of years now, performable works. It is not the language alone that is indicative of Cytter but particularly the narrative forms of storytelling.
The figures in her films and stage plays do not remain on the level of a coherent fiction. Though there are thematic focuses, the emphasis is often on relationship scenarios, tension that broaches on the psychotic, and social alienation and indifference; that is, the interpersonal and private, which are unfolded, not at all simply as linear stories. Cracks and fractures also arise through instances of reference to the media itself. Beginning with the actors’ halting manner of speaking, giving the impression the text is being recited unrehearsed for the first time, to the scripts that are actually lying on a table in one scene, or the stage directions from off stage demanding that the actors should stop improvising. This is not about any simple self-referencing because it is staged and an embedded part of the meta-story. The seemingly authentic amateurish nature is supported, for example, by the impression her films make of being home videos or bound to a performance situation. Cytter short circuits on an overbearing presence of artificial clichés, coded movements and gestures, and quotes that straddle highbrow and pop cultures. Cytter destabilizes her figures to such an extent that they become fragmented.
Education
| 2002-2004 | de Ateliers, Amsterdam, Niederlande |
| 1997-1999 | The Avni Institute, Tel Aviv, Israel |
Solo exhibitions (selection)
| 2011 |
Fear, Fun and Fire, Deutsche Bank Towers, Frankfurt am Main The hottest day of the year, k.m Kunstverein Munich Avalanche, The David Roberts Art Foundation, London, Great Britain |
| 2010 |
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland Keren Cytter, Hammer Museum Project Series, Los Angeles, USA History in the Making (with D.I.E Now), Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands |
| 2009 |
Keren Cytter, Frac Il-de-France/Le Plateau, Paris History in the Making (with D.I.E Now), Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London, Great Britain ; Performa 09, New York, USA |
| 2008 |
Le ruissellements du diable, Kunstverein St. Pauli, Hamburg Keren Cytter, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2007 |
The Victim, MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien, Austria Something Happened, CUBITT Artists, London, Great Britain |
| 2006 |
I was the good and he was the bad and the ugly, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin Atmosphere, GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy |
| 2005 |
Kunsthalle ZĂĽrich, Switzerland Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main |
| 2004 | My brain is in the wall, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Group exhibitions (selection)
| 2011 | Found in Translation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA |
| 2010 |
8th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea Morality, Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2009 |
Making Worlds, Biennale Venedig, Venedig, Italy The New Museum Triennial, The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York, USA |
| 2008 |
Videozone 4, Videozone – International Video-Art Biennial, Tel Aviv, Israel If I Can't Dance … Edition III – Masquerade, De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands Konzepte der Liebe, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne Television Delivers People, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA |