Keren Cytter
Still from: Video Art Manual, 2011, 14'43" digital HD video, Ed. of 5 + 2AP
Keren Cytter was born 1977 in Tel Aviv, Israel. She studied visual art at Avni Institute for Art, Tel Aviv and later moved to Amsterdam on a scholarship from De Ateliers. Today, she lives and works in Berlin.
Keren Cytter is best known for her experimental video works that illuminate the interpersonal and the private, works that are often based on templates of literary or cinematic classics, simultaneously reflecting the influence of the media. The artist is also concerned with drawing, theater production, performance, dance, and even writes her own screenplays and novels. In 2008, Keren Cytter formed the dance theater group Dance International Europe Now.
Among the recurring stylistic elements in Cytter’s videos – in addition to extensive references to cinema and television – are long monologues and numerous vocal overlays, with sound and image usually not synchronized. The image of a male actor can be superimposed with a female voice; a simultaneous subtitle in turn refers to another thing entirely. Cytter, who writes all the scripts herself, uses language according to the particular mood or atmosphere that she would like to generate: French is used for example as the language of love, and English as a pragmatic language. At times, notes or stage directions on the particular filmic work find a self-referential way into the spoken language. A further separate level of language consists of the subtitles that appear to coincide with what is said, though the content may actually differ. Shorter loops and both verbal and visual repetition may appear within the usually not longer than ten-minute films.
The artist decomposes the film into its (normally fixed) single components in order to independently reassemble them again: (amateur) actor, role, voice, spoken word, listened text, language and subtitles are put together in an unusual mix, mostly asynchronous to each other. With her strategy of deconstruction Cytter points out how our perception is dependent on certain speech and image structures and shows that there is a kind of intentional perception that delivers content by using "nuances."
Keren Cytter’s videos were shown in solo exhibitions at Frankfurter Kunstverein and Kunsthalle Zurich (both 2005), Kunst-Werke Berlin (2006), MUMOK Vienna (2007), Witte de With, Rotterdam (2008) and at Le Plateau Paris (2009), Kunsthaus Baselland and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2010) as well as in numerous group exhibitions worldwide (such as Making Worlds curtated by Daniel Birnbaum at Venice Biennial 2009). 2006 Keren Cytter won the Baloise Art Statement Award at Art Basel and was nominated 2009 for the prestigious Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst in Berlin.
Past exhibition at SCHAU ORT:
Morality - Keren Cytter: Cross.Flowers.Rolex, February 27 - April 10, 2010
Keren Cytter is best known for her experimental video works that illuminate the interpersonal and the private, works that are often based on templates of literary or cinematic classics, simultaneously reflecting the influence of the media. The artist is also concerned with drawing, theater production, performance, dance, and even writes her own screenplays and novels. In 2008, Keren Cytter formed the dance theater group Dance International Europe Now.
Among the recurring stylistic elements in Cytter’s videos – in addition to extensive references to cinema and television – are long monologues and numerous vocal overlays, with sound and image usually not synchronized. The image of a male actor can be superimposed with a female voice; a simultaneous subtitle in turn refers to another thing entirely. Cytter, who writes all the scripts herself, uses language according to the particular mood or atmosphere that she would like to generate: French is used for example as the language of love, and English as a pragmatic language. At times, notes or stage directions on the particular filmic work find a self-referential way into the spoken language. A further separate level of language consists of the subtitles that appear to coincide with what is said, though the content may actually differ. Shorter loops and both verbal and visual repetition may appear within the usually not longer than ten-minute films.
The artist decomposes the film into its (normally fixed) single components in order to independently reassemble them again: (amateur) actor, role, voice, spoken word, listened text, language and subtitles are put together in an unusual mix, mostly asynchronous to each other. With her strategy of deconstruction Cytter points out how our perception is dependent on certain speech and image structures and shows that there is a kind of intentional perception that delivers content by using "nuances."
Keren Cytter’s videos were shown in solo exhibitions at Frankfurter Kunstverein and Kunsthalle Zurich (both 2005), Kunst-Werke Berlin (2006), MUMOK Vienna (2007), Witte de With, Rotterdam (2008) and at Le Plateau Paris (2009), Kunsthaus Baselland and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2010) as well as in numerous group exhibitions worldwide (such as Making Worlds curtated by Daniel Birnbaum at Venice Biennial 2009). 2006 Keren Cytter won the Baloise Art Statement Award at Art Basel and was nominated 2009 for the prestigious Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst in Berlin.
Past exhibition at SCHAU ORT:
Morality - Keren Cytter: Cross.Flowers.Rolex, February 27 - April 10, 2010